Open Access, Peer-reviewed, Fast Track Processing, and High Quality Articles on all Topics related to Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychology

The Scandinavian Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychology (SJCAPP) is a new international scientific journal of research and practice covering a broad scope of high value articles in the field of child and adolescent psychiatry and psychology. The journal publishes quantitative and qualitative research on: diagnosis, assessment, psychotherapeutic and psychopharmacological treatments, behaviour, cognition, epidemiology, development, training, cross cultural issues, neuroscience and genetic aspects related to mental disorders in children, adolescents and families. The journal also welcomes interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary submissions if relevant for childhood psychopathology. The Journal publishes short and full length original papers, systematic and narrative reviews, case studies, letters, and theoretical articles including perspectives and debate, and book reviews.

The idea of launching this Journal was born in the beautiful, majestic and wild mountains and fjords in “Nærøyfjorden” in Norway. This is one of the most marvellous areas in Norway, showing the strength of the Scandinavian nature, and like the Swedish forests and the Danish beaches, shows the best of Scandinavia. It is our hope that this new journal will develop to be a marker of Scandinavian quality.

There is a great need for a Scandinavian journal in child and adolescent psychiatry and psychology. The research in the area is in high growth in Scandinavia and worldwide. Scandinavian research in different topics of child and adolescent psychiatry and psychology is of high quality and there is clearly a lack of Scandinavian journals in the area. The need for this journal was also underlined by the positive response to our initiative. All the section editors are among the best researchers in this field in Scandinavia, as the editorial board members are among the best internationally.

The concept of the journal has been prompted by several thoughts. First of all, empirical research has driven the progress in child and adolescent psychiatry and child psychology during the past decades. To continue this progress, the area between basic science and clinical research is important. Complex and sophisticated models of childhood-onset psychiatric disorders have been accomplished by interdisciplinary cooperation between basic scientists and clinicians, and shown in findings in the gene-environment research. Another important area is the area between clinical research and implementation of evidence based interventions in clinical practice. Other important areas are, e.g. research in genetics of neurodevelopmental disorders, longitudinal studies of child psychopathology, twin studies of child psychiatric disorders, neuroimaging studies of childhood onset psychiatric disorders, and studies of newly defined DSM-5 disorders.

A lot of new research in basic and clinical neurosciences has documented that the most common psychiatric disorders in adolescence and adulthood have their onset in the first periods of life and are thus connected to development. This is another reason why we wanted this journal to be both grounded in psychiatric research as well as research and clinical reports from the area of psychology. Furthermore, we wanted the journal to be a journal for both clinicians and researchers. It is a challenge turning basic research findings into clinically useful applications, but it is important to work on this. The journal will be an open access because it is important that the articles will be accessible for everyone. We have no publication fee. Many journals have large publication fees which can make it difficult especially for the clinicians to publish their work.

Child and Adolescent Psychiatry is in rapid development. Many families suffer largely and the research in the above mentioned areas is very important both for improving the assessments and the treatment of families and their children. We are very pleased to introduce our new open access journal, and our hope is that this new publication will support child and adolescent psychiatry, both in Scandinavia and internationally.