Jama Psychiatry

JAMA Psychiatry (jama-psychiatry)

Journal positioning

JAMA Psychiatry is a JAMA Network specialty journal for clinical psychiatry and mental-health research relevant to the practice of psychiatry. It favors rigorous, practice-relevant work — randomized psychiatric and psychotherapy trials, large epidemiologic and registry studies, and neuropsychiatric/biomarker and neuroimaging studies tied to clinical phenotypes — with JAMA's emphasis on validated outcomes, adequate power, and direct relevance to mental-health care. It is a JAMA Network venue with a North-American clinical center of gravity, distinct from the Lancet family's global-mental-health reach. Small symptom-scale studies, underpowered neuroimaging with no replication, and biomarker correlations without clinical endpoints are a weak fit. This skill is a fit / venue-selection / re-framing aid; it is not clinical or regulatory advice and does not replace the journal's current instructions for authors. Before submitting, re-check the live JAMA Psychiatry author instructions.

When to trigger

• The author names JAMA Psychiatry for a psychiatric trial, epidemiologic, or neuropsychiatric study and wants a fit/framing check.
• A mental-health study must be re-framed around a validated clinical outcome and a practice-relevant question for a psychiatry readership.
• The author is choosing between JAMA Psychiatry, JAMA, and the Lancet family (the-lancet-psychiatry).
• The author needs the journal's reporting-guideline, registration, and desk-reject expectations for psychiatry work.

Scope & topic fit

• Randomized trials of pharmacologic, psychotherapeutic, neuromodulation, or digital mental-health interventions with validated symptom or functional outcomes.
• Large psychiatric epidemiology, registry, and longitudinal cohort studies on incidence, course, comorbidity, and mortality.
• Neuropsychiatric and neuroimaging studies (structural/functional MRI, EEG) tied to diagnosis, prognosis, or treatment response, with adequate power and replication.
• Genetic and biomarker studies validated against a clinical phenotype or outcome.
• Suicide, substance-use, and severe-mental-illness research with appropriate ethics and safety monitoring.
• Health-services, disparities, and mental-health-policy research; focused systematic reviews and meta-analyses.

Method & evidence bar

• Trials must be adequately powered with a prespecified primary outcome using a validated, clinically meaningful measure; minimal clinically important differences and response/remission definitions should be addressed.
• The applicable reporting guideline and checklist are required: CONSORT for trials (including extensions for non-pharmacologic/psychotherapy and digital interventions), STROBE for observational studies, PRISMA for systematic reviews.
• Trials require prospective registration; registration number, protocol, and statistical-analysis plan are expected.
• Blinding is often imperfect in psychotherapy/behavioral trials; the report must state who was blinded and how outcome ascertainment was protected from bias.
• Neuroimaging/biomarker work needs adequate power, correction for multiple comparisons, and ideally independent replication or external validation.
• Observational claims must address confounding, reverse causation, and missing data; causal language must match the design.

Structure & house style

• JAMA Network format with a structured abstract and a Key Points box; re-check current article types (Original Investigation, Brief Report, Research Letter, etc.) and limits on the live guide.
• The introduction frames a focused, practice-relevant psychiatric question; the discussion states the clinical implication plainly and avoids overstatement.
• Tables/figures follow JAMA Network statistical-reporting standards; CONSORT/STROBE flow diagrams and outcome-trajectory figures are expected where applicable.
• Supplements carry the protocol, SAP, scale definitions, and additional analyses.