BMC Psychiatry is an open access, peer-reviewed journal that encompasses a wide range of topics, including psychopharmacology, psychotherapy, and psychosocial approaches to psychiatric disorders, as well as genetics, pathophysiology, and epidemiology research. The journal welcomes both basic and applied science articles, and research exploring innovative treatments, service delivery methods, and social psychiatry. It promotes the participation of service users, patient representatives, and advisors to ensure that their perspectives are represented.

The journal welcomes manuscripts in the following broad areas of psychiatry research:

Causes, treatment and prevention of suicide including assessment and risk-management approaches, ethical issues in intervention research, cross-cultural risk factors for suicide

Child, adolescent and developmental psychiatry including psychiatric disorders that primarily manifest and emerge in young populations

Eating disorders including anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and eating disorders not otherwise specified

Forensic psychiatry including general violence, domestic violence, homicide, sex offences, assessment in forensic settings

Geriatric psychiatry and cognitive disorders including dementia, geriatric depression, cognitive impairment and delirium

Mood disorders including depression and bipolar disorders

Personality disorders and disorders of adult behavior including psychological assessment, associations among social roles, personality, and physical and mental health, and cognitive functions

Psychiatric molecular genetics including gene-environment interaction in psychiatric disorders, pharmacogenetics, linkage, association studies, cognitive endophenotypes, epigenetics, gene expression and genome-wide association studies

Psychotic disorders including schizophrenia, antipsychotics, biochemistry, hallucinations and delusions

Sleep disorders including insomnia and stress related sleep disorders

Social psychiatry, therapy and provision of mental health care including psychotherapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, internet in psychological research, behavior surveillance, epidemiology, psychiatric rehabilitation, health behavior, community mental health, work and mental health

Stress and anxiety including severe and traumatic stress, post-traumatic stress disorder, post-conflict mental health, anxiety disorders and phobias

Substance-related disorders, addiction and impulse control including problem/pathological gambling, substance abuse, alcohol and drug disorders, behavioral addiction, impulsive and antisocial behaviors

Women and mental health including research on depression at times of hormone change, such as during or after pregnancy, premenstrual dysphoric disorder, and perimenopause-related depression