[Social-psychiatric research in Germany--a literature review].

Objective: This study aims at analysing content, authorship, type of journal and associated institution of scientific contributions on social psychiatry in 16 German-speaking journals. In order to detect development and change in respect to the aspects mentioned, two time periods are compared systematically (1997-1998/2007-2008).

Methods: The authors selected all original papers in 16 journals from German-speaking countries along common definitions of social psychiatry.