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• Many mental health disorders first emerge during early childhood or adolescence. • Wait times for children's mental health services have been an international and widespread problem. • Long wait times prolong the emotional distress of children and/or adolescents and their caregivers which can exacerbate mental health difficulties. • The majority of research in this area has been conducted in the United Kingdom and Canada and focus on one waitlist strategy. • Common strategies include alternative service delivery models, increasing system capacity, and improving intake and assessment processes. Background: Although many mental health disorders first emerge during early childhood or adolescence, there is a significant gap between demand and availability of mental health resources, leading to long waitlists for services. Objective: The objective of this scoping review was to identify and characterize the research literature related to the range of waitlist management strategies that have been implemented in outpatient child and adolescent mental health care. Methods: Electronic databases reviewed included: Medline (Ovid), Embase (Ovid), PubMed, PsychINFO, SCOPUS, CINAHL, and ISI Web of Science. Grey literature databases included: OpenGrey, Conference Papers Index, and Proquest Digital Dissertations. Articles were screened by two reviewers in two steps: first by title and abstract, then full text level. Data were extracted using an a-priori developed data extraction framework, which was piloted and modified iteratively. Results: A total of 119 papers related to waitlist interventions in child and adolescent mental health were reviewed. Of these 119 papers, 11% were reviews, summary, or theoretical papers; 8% used a randomized control trial design and 2.5% were trial protocols. Most studies used less rigorous designs, such as uncontrolled before-and- after designs. The large majority focused on just one waitlist strategy each. The most commonly used approaches included: prioritization/triage and initial assessment; brief consultation and advice or brief therapy approaches; group-based models; interim services; increasing capacity; and strategies to decrease non-attendance. Most studies were conducted in the United Kingdom or Canada. Discussion: While mental health systems are complex, most studies examining waitlist initiatives explored the implementation of single initiatives. It is unlikely that a single waitlist strategy can be effective in managing wait times for children's mental health. Rather, consistent and systemic approaches to address wait times that consider the impact of the reduction approach on the patient, the program, and the community are needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to improve individual research achievements (IRA), this study investigates which affiliated countries and authors earn the most cited IRAs and whether those types of articles are associated with the number of cited papers on schizophrenia from a leading journal in the field. The Kano model was used for displaying the IRAs. Clusters of medical subject headings (MeSH) were applied to explore the core concepts of a given journal. This study aimed to apply social network analysis (SNA) and an authorship-weighted scheme (AWS) to inspect the association between MeSH terms and IRA. About 2,008 abstracts published between 2012 and 2016 in the journal Schizophrenia Research were downloaded from Pubmed Central using the keyword (Schizophr Res)[Journal] on September 20, 2018. The MeSH terms were clustered by using SNA to separate the core concepts and compare the differences in bibliometric indices (i.e., h, Ag, x and author impact factor or AIF). Visual dashboards were shown on Google Maps. Results indicate that (1) the US, the UK, and Canada earn the highest x-index; (2) the top one author from the US has the highest x-index (= 5.73 with x-core at cited = 16.44 and citable = 2); (3) the article type of schizophrenic psychology shows distinctly higher frequencies than others; and (4) article types are associated with the number of cited papers. Four approaches of the Kano model, SNA, MeSH terms, and AWS can be accommodated to display IRAs, classify article types, and quantify coauthor contributions in the article byline, respectively, and applied to other scientific disciplines in the future, not just in this specific journal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clinical trials for the treatment of schizophrenia now often include cognitive assessments in addition to clinical ratings of symptoms. Recently, these trials have included cross-national assessments. It is not clear if translated psychological tests produce consistent results across different languages. This paper presents the results of a study of the comparability of the results of cognitive assessments in different English-speaking countries and a number of countries where tests were translated into other languages. Performance on tests of executive functioning, verbal and visuo-spatial learning and memory, language skills, psychomotor speed, and vigilance was compared across the first episode patients with schizophrenia (n=301) assessed in six different languages (English, French, Finnish, German, Hebrew, and Afrikaans), including two different countries where patients were assessed in English and other languages: Canada (French) and South Africa (Afrikaans). The variance in performance across the sites tested in English was as large as the variance between English and non-English speakers when all tests were considered. Performance differences across English and other languages were found only for executive functions, vigilance, and psychomotor speed, with executive functioning differences nonsignificant when education was considered. No differences were found between English and non-English speakers in Canada. These results suggest that the translation of tests of memory and verbal skills can lead to consistent results across translated versions of the tests. Differences between countries were greater than differences between languages, suggesting the need to consider representativeness of patient samples in terms of local educational attainment. In general, these data support the validity of cross-national neuropsychological assessments. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]