Three decades of suicide and life-threatening behavior: a bibliometric study.

The purpose of this study is to quantify certain characteristics of the articles published in Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior in three 5-year periods, namely, 1971-1975, 1984-1988, and 1997-2001. The characteristics in question include geographic origin of articles, number of authors per article, number of references listed per article, and number of times an article is cited in the literature. Changes across the three periods in terms of distribution of subjects/participants by age group and gender are also examined. The discussion focuses on explanations for the trends and characteristics that are described.