A thank-you note from the Chief-Editor

In 2009 I had the privilege to be appointed as the Chief-Editor of the World Journal of Biological Psychiatry (WJBP), which was founded by Hans-Jürgen Möller in 1999 together with Joseph Zohar and Carlos Hojaij. In June 2019 I will step down as Chief-Editor, therefore, it is time for me to say thank you for all the opportunities and experiences of the last decade.

Already in the first years the WJBP was well received in the community and all four issues were soon filled with not only original articles, but also with treatment guidelines of various psychiatric diseases. Soon the first impact factor (IF) of 2.8 was received for the journal in 2005 and thereafter the IF increased to the height of 5.564, due to the treatment guidelines developed by the World Federation of Societies of Biological Psychiatry (WFSBP), which became a backbone of the journal. The large volume of treatment guidelines and a large backlog of articles made the decision necessary to increase the number of annual issues from four to eight and to publish the backlog in two special issues. This, however, resulted in a drop of the IF in the years 2010 and 2011 as the IF is a calculation which takes into account the number of citations, received in that year, of articles published in that journal during the two preceding years, divided by the total number of articles published in that journal during the two preceding years. Thereafter, we saw a steady increase of the IF and the five-year IF of 3.864 received in 2018 reflects the journal’s popularity in the psychiatric field, ranging in the top 20–30% of journals listed in PubMed in Psychiatry (total of 142 journals; see Figure 1) over the years. The change in IF and its dependence on the number of articles published is worthwhile to know when the leadership of journals intends to increase the number of articles as well as to publish a backlog.

Figure 1. Impact factor development over the years.

The ten most highly cited papers published in the WJBP depict nine treatment guidelines (see Table 1); this indicates the popularity of the guidelines, which by decision of the executive committee of the WFSBP can be freely downloaded (https://wfsbp.org/home/). The WFSBP treatment guidelines, initiated by the wise decision and enthusiasm to the field of the first Chief Editor and honorary president of WFSBP, Hans-Jürgen Möller, are updated at least every five years and are also available in shorter versions published in the International Journal of Psychiatry in Clinical Practice (Bandelow et al. 2012; Bauer et al. 2017; Hasan et al. 2017).

Table 1. The ten most highly cited papers published in the World Journal of Biological Psychiatry, according to Scopus (as of 13 February 2019).

Authors and year of publication	Article title	No. of citations
Bandelow et al. 2008b	World Federation of Societies of Biological Psychiatry (WFSBP) guidelines for the pharmacological treatment of anxiety, obsessive-compulsive and post-traumatic stress disorders - First revision	439
Bauer et al. 2002	World Federation of Societies of Biological Psychiatry (WFSBP) guidelines for biological treatment of unipolar depressive disorders, part 1: Acute and continuation treatment of major depressive disorder	292
Bauer et al. 2007	World Federation of Societies of Biological Psychiatry (WFSBP) guidelines for biological treatment of unipolar depressive disorders in primary care	275
Grunze et al. 2010	The World Federation of Societies of Biological Psychiatry (WFSBP) guidelines for the biological treatment of bipolar disorders: Update 2010 on the treatment of acute bipolar depression	240
Grunze et al. 2009	The World Federation of Societies of Biological Psychiatry (WFSBP) guidelines for the biological treatment of bipolar disorders: Update 2009 on the treatment of acute mania	239
Hasan et al. 2012	World Federation of Societies of Biological Psychiatry (WFSBP) Guidelines for Biological Treatment of Schizophrenia, Part 1: Update 2012 on the acute treatment of schizophrenia and the management of treatment resistance	229
Falkai et al. 2005	World Federation of Societies of Biological Psychiatry (WFSBP) guidelines for biological treatment of schizophrenia, Part 1: Acute treatment of schizophrenia	224
Bauer et al. 2013	World Federation of Societies of Biological Psychiatry (WFSBP) Guidelines for Biological Treatment of Unipolar Depressive Disorders, Part 1: Update 2013 on the acute and continuation treatment of unipolar depressive disorders	210
Bocchio-Chiavetto et al. 2010	Serum and plasma BDNF levels in major depression: A replication study and meta-analyses	210
Grunze et al. 2013	The World Federation of Societies of Biological Psychiatry (WFSBP) guidelines for the biological treatment of bipolar disorders: Update 2012 on the long-term treatment of bipolar disorder	196

During the WFSBP World Congresses, specific workshops are dedicated to the WFSBP treatment guidelines in order to discuss and update their contents after the congress with the Task Force for the specific diseases. The system of how these WFSBP guidelines are developed is as follows in brief: the Task Force appoints a group of authors to work on the guidelines. The group’s secretary usually serves as first author and the chair as last author. This group drafts a manuscript based on the latest data available in the literature. Then, the manuscript is sent to all Task Force members for peer review and their suggestions and critiques are addressed in the revised version of the manuscript and thereafter the manuscript is sent to all National Presidents of member countries (63) for their input. This is considered as a second peer review. At the same time, the Field Editor also receives the final version and makes further suggestions and recommendations. The first attempt to standardise the development of the guidelines was undertaken by Bandelow et al. in 2008a and recently refined by Hasan et al. in 2019.

The journal now has on average about 300 submitted manuscripts per year and the rejection rate over the years has ranged between 60% and 81%. In 2017, 40% of the submitted manuscripts were from Europe, 30% from Asia, 9% from North America, 5% from Australia, 3% from South America and 3% from Africa. Within Europe the highest number of accepted articles in 2017 were from Germany followed by Italy, France and the United Kingdom.

The journal aims to publish original work derived from research on the full spectrum of biological mechanisms, encompassing classical and novel techniques in biological psychiatry, as well as strategies such as neuroimaging, genetics, neuropsychopharmacology, psychoneuroendocrinology and neuropsychology. Furthermore, the journal aims to educate the scientific community by publishing treatment guidelines, consensus reports and reviews. Since publications need to be processed timely, the maximum of days from submission to decision in the WJBP has been benchmarked to around 71 days. The total citation volume rose from 1054 in 2010 to 2165 in 2017, which indicates a good standing in the scientific community. As some journals have high numbers of self-cites, which in turn also affects the IF, it is worth mentioning that our journal is in the lower range of about 2.5% self-cites, which went into the IF calculation in 2017. The WJBP follows a hybrid model with regard to open access, e.g., the authors can submit manuscripts with or without open access, which from my point-of-view is important to maintain, since not all authors have the monetary background to finance their publications, for which they usually have to pay between € 2,000 and € 3,000 per article.

The development of the past two decades indicates that with the WJBP we are on a good way to a better understanding and treatment of our patients and I am convinced that the journal under its new leadership will encourage the acceleration of pathways for discovery and future avenues for research.

It was a great joy and reward editing the journal as its Chief Editor and to collaborate with world-leading scientists in the field. I specifically would like to thank the Assistant Chief Editor, Rainer Rupprecht, who was in this position already at the beginning of the journal and continued with his advice and skills in the interest of the journal during my Chief Editorship. I am also thankful for the dedication of the Field Editors, Dan Rujescu (Molecular Psychiatry), Stephen Lawrie (Neuroimaging), George Papakostas (Psychopharmacology and Brain Stimulation), Janusz Rybakowski (Clinical research) and Maurizio Popoli (Preclinical Studies), for doing an excellent job in editing the manuscripts according to international scientific standards. We appreciated the historical locations for our field editors meeting in Vienna which took place in the apartment of Sigmund Freud in Berggasse 19, in the Viktor Frankl Centre adjacent to his apartment in Mariannengasse 1, as well as in the historical (from 1785) reading room of “The Collegium-Medico-Chirurgicum-Josephinum” in Währinger Strasse 25.

I always appreciated the support the journal received from the leadership of the WFSBP, the publisher Informa Healthcare (Taylor & Francis), the Editorial Board members, the broad community of reviewers and last but not least, most importantly, the authors who submitted manuscripts to the journal. All of us are dedicated to reduce the burden of neuropsychiatric disorders through a sound scientific knowledge and to understand and treat our patients more efficiently. The first 20 years of the journal were exciting and outstanding, and I wish the WJBP a further or even better development for the next 20 years.

Statement of interest

Siegfried Kasper received grants/research support, consulting fees and/or honoraria within the last three years from Angelini, AOP Orphan Pharmaceuticals AG, Celegne GmbH, Eli Lilly, Janssen-Cilag Pharma GmbH, KRKA-Pharma, Lundbeck A/S, Mundipharma, Neuraxpharm, Pfizer, Sanofi, Schwabe, Servier, Shire, Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma Co. Ltd. and Takeda.

Acknowledgements

All activities of the WJBP have been advised and received feedback from our managing editors, Magdalena Hlava, Andrea King, Berenike Oppermann, Helen Sigurdadottir and Lisa Steinmetz. The field editors, Drs Dan Rujescu, Stephen Lawrie, Georges Papakostas, Janusz Rybakowski and Maurizio Popoli devoted their scientific knowledge and time and I am grateful I was able to work with this outstanding exceptional group of people.