APA Introduces Journal Focused on Clinical Utility of New Research

An APA journal making its online debut before the end of the year will aim for clinical utility, moving advances in psychiatric research closer to patient care.

Psychiatric Research and Clinical Practice (PRCP) will be “committed to keeping the field of psychiatry vibrant and relevant and enhancing APA’s leadership role in scientific publishing in psychiatry by publishing cutting-edge research and special features that provide context for research findings, thus moving scientific investigations toward clinical utility,” according to the journal’s mission statement. The first articles are expected to be posted at year’s end, with the first full issue of the journal to be published in early 2018.

Submissions on all aspects of mental and behavioral health to inform the field from bench to bedside are welcome. Authors interested in publishing in the journal are invited to submit articles for consideration. Journal content will be available on APA Publishing’s portal at psychiatryonline.org.

“We want to occupy that place between clinical research and clinical utility, but moving a little closer to clinical utility,” said Kimberly A. Yonkers, M.D., editor of PRCP. “We hope to see replication studies and features that show how new scientific knowledge can inform clinical practice.”

As an example, Yonkers cited the flood of studies capitalizing on brain imaging. “The question we are asking at the journal is, ‘What does this new imaging finding mean for the practitioner and his or her patient?’ ”

Yonkers said she is also looking forward to publication of a feature she is calling “Clinical Pearls”—accounts from clinicians using research findings to manage common clinical challenges.

Yonkers is a professor of psychiatry, epidemiology, obstetrics/gynecology, and reproductive sciences and director of the Center for Wellbeing of Women and Mothers at Yale University. She brings to the task of editing APA’s newest journal a broad and deep experience in research and clinical work. Her research includes investigations into the clinical course, etiopathology, and treatment of psychiatric disorders as they occur in women. A major component of this work includes investigations into the occurrence and treatment of illnesses in pregnancy and the postpartum period and across the menstrual cycle. This area, by its nature, cuts across disciplines and requires psychiatric expertise as well as knowledge in neuroscience and reproductive biology.

Her work has also included determining optimal methods for screening and treating women for substance use problems when they are pregnant or postpartum.

In an interview with Psychiatric News, Yonkers said she believes her own research career suits her well to the editorship of a journal focusing on clinical utility.

“My work has been very interdisciplinary, roughly falling into the category of psychosomatic medicine,” she said. “I work with obstetrician-gynecologists and other specialists in general hospitals and inpatient and outpatient settings. It’s very pragmatic research. My clinical studies have really focused on meaningful clinical questions. How can we come up with strategies to treat people who have or are at risk for psychiatric disorders?”

She urges APA members to look for Psychiatric Research and Clinical Practice, read it regularly, and feel welcome to contribute. “We hope members find the content valuable, especially about making research accessible and usable in their practices and useful for their patients,” she said. ■