Information About

Psycinfo




It contains citations and summaries from the 1800s to the present, of:
  • journal articles

  • book chapters

  • books

  • technical reports

  • dissertations within the field of Psychology


General Facts:
  • More than 2.3 million records as of June 2007

  • More than 161,000 records added to the database in 2006

  • Updated weekly


Journal coverage:
  • More than 2,150 titles covered

  • 98% are peer reviewed journals

  • Currently covered journals at www.apa.org/psycinfo/about/covlist.html

  • Journal records—78% of database

  • Accepted for coverage if archival, scholarly, peer-reviewed, and regularly published with titles, abstracts, and keywords in English

  • Comprehensive coverage of more than 1,099 titles ("cover to cover") as of Winter 2006

  • 237 journals with a 100% selection rate

  • Articles selected for psychological relevance from remaining titles


Book coverage
  • Chapters from authored and edited books—7% of database

  • Authored and edited books—4% of database

  • English-language, published worldwide

  • Selected if scholarly, professional, or research-based; all with psychological relevance


Dissertations and other secondary publications
  • Selected from Dissertation Abstracts International (A and B)

  • 11% of database

  • Abstracts in dissertation records starting 1995

  • Selected on basis of classification in DAI in sections with psychological relevance


Geographical coverage
  • Publications from more than 49 countries

  • Journals—more than 27 languages

  • Non-English titles in Roman alphabets included 1978–present


Record Contents
  • Bibliographic citation

  • Abstract

  • Table of contents for books

  • Index terms from the Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms

  • Keywords

  • Classification categories

  • Population information

  • Geographical location of the research population

  • Tests and measurements used in the research

  • Cited references for journal articles, book chapters, and books mainly from 2001 to present

  • More information at www.apa.org/psycinfo/about/fieldguide.html.


Abstracts
  • 1995 to present, virtually 100% of records have abstracts (0.007% no abstracts)

  • For non-dissertation documents added from 1967 to present, 99.2% contain abstracts


Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms
  • 10th Edition (print) released in July 2004 with 200 new terms

  • August 2005 Online update to the Tenth Edition includes more than 200 changes

  • More than 7,900 controlled terms and cross-references

  • Hierarchical, alphabetical, and subject arrangements

  • Records indexed with most specific term applicable

  • Major and minor terms assigned

  • Maximum of 15 total terms, 5 major terms.

  • More information at www.apa.org/psycinfo/products/thesaurus.html.


Classification System
  • 22 major categories and 135 subcategories

  • Each record assigned to one or two classifications

  • Scheme found at www.apa.org/psycinfo/about/classcodes.html


Cited References
  • More than 23 million references in 600,500+ journal articles, books, and book chapters as of June 2007

  • Retrospective to 2001 and earlier, where available (APA to 1987)

  • APA-style format

  • More information at www.apa.org/psycinfo/about/citedrefs.html


Historic Records
  • Sources

  • Psychological Abstracts 1927–1966; Psychological Bulletin 1921–1926; American Journal of Psychology 1887–1966; All APA journals back to first issue of publication; Psychological Index (1894–-1935); citations to English language journals only;Classic Books in Psychology of the 20th Century and the Harvard Book List, 1840–1971

  • All records published in Psychological Abstracts are now in PsycINFO

  • More than 335,000 historic records in PsycINFO

  • Historic records differ from 1967–present records

  • No controlled vocabulary (descriptor) field; index field may contain descriptor terms, but they are not controlled; other indexing fields, such as Age Groups, form/Content are not present; classifications are broad only


PsycINFO is produced and copyrighted (c) by the American Psychological Association, all rights reserved.

It is one of a number of databases indexing psychological research papers and journals. Others include PsycLit , Psychological Abstracts , Ulrich International Periodical Directory , PUBLIST (The Internet Directory Publications), ISSN International , PSICODOC , the ISOC database PSEDISOC , CSIC-RISO , CIRBIC-REVISTAS , COMPLUDOC Social Sciences Citation Index and the Institute For Scientific Information (Thomson-ISI)


EXTERNAL LINKS