Aims: To explore the current state of Italian social psychiatry research as evidenced by original papers published in peer-reviewed journals 2004-2006.
Methods: Electronic databases and hand searches of leading peer-reviewed journals were used to identify original research papers published in 2004-2006, addressing a social psychiatric issue, having at least one Italian author, and reporting data from Italian samples.
Results: A total of 174 papers were identified. A substantial proportion reported findings of international collaborative research. Quantitative methods dominated, with 86 papers on cross-sectional surveys. Only 18 papers showed results of intervention trials with pre and post measures. Most common target group were psychiatric patients in community mental health services which featured in 93 papers.
Conclusions: There is a critical mass of Italian social psychiatry research, dominated by a few research centres and with considerable amount of international collaboration. The findings of this survey might reflect the relative shortage of national funding for social psychiatry research.