Assessing the national productivity in subspecialty critical care medicine journals: A bibliometric analysis

doi:10.1016/j.jcrc.2012.03.002

Journal of Critical Care

Volume 27, Issue 6, December 2012, Pages 747.e1-747.e5

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcrc.2012.03.002 Get rights and content

Abstract

Purpose

In recent years, significant growth has been seen in the subspecialty critical care medicine. However, the national productivity to the subspecialty critical care medicine remains unknown. We therefore intended to reveal the national contribution in the subspecialty critical care medicine journals.

Materials and Methods

Articles published in 20 highly cited journals in subspecialty critical care medicine from 2006 to 2010 were retrieved from Web of Science and PubMed. The number of total articles and randomized, controlled trials, the per capita numbers, total impact factors (IFs), and citations were tabulated to assess the contribution of different countries.

Results

A total number of 17 667 articles were published in the 20 journals from 2006 to 2010 worldwide. North America, West Europe, and East Asia were the most productive regions. High-income countries published 89.68% of the total articles. The United States published the most number of articles in 2006 to 2010 (6659/17 667, or 37.69%), followed by United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Australia. Besides, the United States also had the most number of randomized, controlled trials (260), the highest total impact factors (27 206.55), and the highest total citations (84 170). When normalized to population size, Australia had the highest number of articles per million population, followed by Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, and Belgium.

Conclusion

The United States is the most productive country in the subspecialty critical care medicine. When normalized to population size, Australia and some European countries might be more productive.

Introduction

In recent years, significant growth has been seen in the subspecialty critical care medicine, along with the progress of other branches of biomedical research. The number of original articles published by a country or an institution is an important indicator of their contribution to the production of new knowledge in subspecialty critical care medicine [1]. Because of the rapid advancement of Internet technology, communication in scientific information of biomedical research is much more convenient than before, especially after the wide use of some databases, including the PubMed and Web of Science. Based on the available search tools, large-size bibliometric analysis is feasible now.

In 2005, Michalopoulos et al [2] analyzed the worldwide research productivity in critical care medicine journals between 1995 and 2003. This literature survey aimed to quantify national contribution in the subspecialty critical care medicine worldwide based on the databases, Web of Science, and PubMed.

Section snippets

Methods

A total of 23 journals related to the subspecialty critical care medicine were selected from the “critical care medicine” category of Science Citation Index Expanded subject categories in Journal Citation Reports (JCR) 2010 established by the Institute for Scientific Information [3]. We only included the journals published in English, and therefore, 3 non-English journals were excluded (Medicina Intensiva, Anasthesiologie & Intensivmedizin, and Anasthesie, Intensivtherapie, Notfallmedizin).

Results

A total number of 17 667 articles were published in the 20 journals from 2006 to 2010 worldwide. Fig. 1 shows the world map of the productive areas, which showed that North America, West Europe, and East Asia were the most productive regions.

In our data set from 2006 to 2010, high-income countries published 15 844 articles (89.68%) (Fig. 2). Taken together, middle-income countries (sum of lower middle-income and upper middle-income countries) published 1804 articles (10.21%). However,

Discussion

We found that authors from the United States published far more articles than any other country. As we all know, the United States has been recognized as the most productive country in biomedical research for about several decades. Besides, in critical care medicine, the United States also had overwhelming dominance in many other subfields of biomedical research, such as anesthesiology, gastroenterology, laboratory medicine, and other [6], [7], [8]. Compared with the production in 1995 to 2003

References (11)

D.H. Liu et al.
Scientific publications in laboratory medicine from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan: a ten-year survey of the literature
Clin Chim Acta
(2010)
M.D. Bould et al.
National representation in the anaesthesia literature: a bibliometric analysis of highly cited anaesthesia journals
Anaesthesia
(2010)
A. Michalopoulos et al.
Worldwide research productivity in critical care medicine
Crit Care
(2005)
ISI Journal Citation Reports, Institute for Scientific Information,...
World Bank list of economies
(2011)

There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

Cited by (20)

A Bibliometric Analysis of 4 Major Foot and Ankle Surgery Journals
2021, Journal of Foot and Ankle Surgery
Citation Excerpt :
Previous analyses have looked at population and GDP but have not looked into what has affected the citation rates of the papers published (10). As has been seen in many other areas, the majority of research originates from the USA (10-14), with much of the rest coming from Europe/UK. This study concurs with previous research, suggesting that the higher income countries provide a greater amount of research to the global community (10).
Research publication is a central to the scientific process and comprehensive bibliometric analysis is a leading way to better understand trends within research. Currently, there are limited bibliometric analyses of literature pertaining to foot and ankle surgery. This study aims to quantify the volume of research and investigate what may affect publication and citation. Journals associated with the 3 major orthopedic foot and ankle societies (Foot & Ankle International[FAI], Foot and Ankle Surgery, and The Foot) and one podiatric college (Journal of Foot and Ankle Surgery®) were evaluated from January 2009 to December 2018 using Scopus (Elsevier, Amsterdam, the Netherlands). Descriptive statistics were used to summarize article characteristics and regression modeling was used to determine factors associated with a country's current and future productivity and an article's citation rate. A total of 4994 articles were published over the 10-year period, with the largest contributor of publications being the United States of America (USA), who produced 2096 (41.8%) publications. Regression analysis found no association between a country's productivity and gross domestic product or population. There was no significant relationship between a country's baseline publication rate and future publication rate. The variables significantly associated with an increased citation count were; the number of years since publication, the number of authors, publication in FAI and if the article was a review. To our knowledge this is the largest bibliometric analysis of foot and ankle publications. The majority of research is being produced by the USA, but there are numerous complex factors associated with citation and publication rates. Further research is required to fully assess these factors and characterize the state of foot and ankle surgery research.
Worldwide arthroplasty research productivity and contribution of Turkey
2018, Acta Orthopaedica et Traumatologica Turcica
Bibliometrics is increasingly used to assess the quantity and quality of scientific research output in many research fields worldwide. However, to the best of our knowledge, no studies have documented the main characteristics of arthroplasty publications from different countries. This study aimed to evaluate the worldwide research productivity and status of Turkey in the field of arthroplasty using bibliometric methods and to provide an insight into the arthroplasty research for surgeons and researchers.
The Web of Science database was searched to identify arthroplasty articles published between 2006 and 2016. The contributions of countries were evaluated based on publication count, citation average, h-index and publication rate in the top 10 ranked journals. Each countries publication output was adjusted according to population size.
A total of 26.167 articles were identified. World arthroplasty publications were increased significantly over time (p < .005). The United States was the most productive country with 9007 articles (34,4% of total) followed by England with 2939 articles (11,4 of total) and Germany with 1881 articles (7,1% of total). According to average citations per item, Scotland was in the first place followed by Denmark and Sweden, whereas in the first place according to publication output adjusted by population size was Switzerland followed by Denmark and Scotland. The United States was also in the first place according to h-index and publication rate in the top 10 ranked journals. Founding average was 28,8% (7539 of 26164) for the arthroplasty articles that were analyzed in the study.
There is a rapid increase in the number of articles in arthroplasty research from 2006 to 2016. The United States was the most productive country as measured by total publications in the arthroplasty field. However, some small European countries with high in-come have higher quality of articles and better productivity when adjusted for population. Gross domestic product (GDP) per capita and research foundation had positive affect on arthroplasty publications, both qualitatively and quantitatively.
Worldwide productivity in the hand and wrist literature: A bibliometric analysis of four highly cited subspecialty journals
2016, International Journal of Surgery
Citation Excerpt :
The number of publications from a country can be used to evaluate its contributions to the creation of new knowledge, and also to determine trends in scholarly publications in a certain topic. In recent years, bibliometric analysis has been widely conducted to investigate the national contributions in many medical fields including surgical oncology [2], foot and ankle surgery [3], arthroscopy [4], rheumatology [5], plastic and reconstructive surgery [6], emergency medicine [7], anaesthesia [8], and critical care medicine [9]. Research productivity in hand and wrist field, however, has not been reported to date.
Hand and wrist research has recently shown obvious progress. The quantity and quality of publications from different nations, however, have not been analyzed. In our study, we aimed to assess the characteristics of worldwide productivity in hand and wrist literature using highly cited subspecialty journals.
Literature search using the Web of Science database was conducted to identify hand and wrist articles in four highly cited subspecialty journals from 2005 to 2014. The number of articles, impact factors and citations were analyzed to evaluate the contributions of different countries. Publication activity was adjusted for the countries by population size.
A total of 4268 publications were identified. The number of articles showed a significant increase of 2.10-fold between 2005 and 2014 (p = 0.0001). North America, West Europe, and East Asia were the most prolific areas. The majority of publications (92.03%) were from high-income countries, 7.97% from middle-income countries, and no publications from lower-income countries. The United States published the most articles (53.89%), followed by United Kingdom (6.51%), Japan (6.14%), Canada (3.70%), and China (3.37%). Articles originating from the United States showed the greatest number of total 5-year impact factors (5y-IF) (4059.56) and total citations (17,998). When normalized to population size, United States ranked the first (7.16), followed by Sweden (6.53), and Netherlands (5.72). However, Netherlands (1.893) had the highest mean 5y-IF, followed by Germany (1.884) and Australia (1.883). Sweden had the highest average citations per article (11.38), followed by Germany (9.63), and Australia (9.08).
The number of publications of hand and wrist research shows a significant increase during the past 10 years. The United States is the most productive country in hand and wrist literature. However, some European countries and Australia may have higher quality of articles according to mean 5y-IF and mean citations per article.
Worldwide research productivity in the field of arthroscopy: A bibliometric analysis
2015, Arthroscopy - Journal of Arthroscopic and Related Surgery
Citation Excerpt :
On October 10, 2014, a computerized literature search of the Web of Science (WoS) database was conducted. This platform was chosen because it is the world's leading collection of citation and other academic impact information and has been widely used in similar studies.3,5,7 The topic searched for was “Arthroscop*,” with the publication time span limited to the years between 1999 and 2013, with no restriction on language.
This study aimed to evaluate the quantity and quality of articles from different countries involving arthroscopy to investigate the characteristics of worldwide research productivity.
Web of Science was searched for arthroscopy articles published between 1999 and 2013. The numbers of articles and citations were analyzed to assess the contributions of different countries. Publication activity was adjusted by country population and gross domestic product (GDP).
A total of 12,553 articles were published worldwide. The time trend for the number of articles showed an increase of 2.27-fold between 1999 and 2013. North America, Western Europe, and Eastern Asia were the most productive areas. High-income countries published 90.86% of the articles; middle-income countries, 9.11%; and lower-income countries, only 0.02%. The United States published the most articles (35.40%), followed by Germany (9.53%), the United Kingdom (6.80%), the Republic of Korea (5.45%), and Japan (4.76%), and had the highest total citations (78,161). However, Sweden had the highest mean citations (35.56), followed by Switzerland (23.39) and the Netherlands (18.90). There were positive correlations between the number of publications and population/GDP (P < .01). When normalized to population, Switzerland ranked the highest, followed by Finland and Sweden. When adjusted by GDP, the Republic of Korea ranked first, followed by Finland and Turkey.
The number of publications on arthroscopy increased significantly from 1999 to 2013, with a more than 2-fold increase in volume. The United States was the most productive country as measured by total publications, but when adjusted for population, Switzerland published the highest number of articles, followed by Finland and Sweden. When publications were adjusted for GDP, the Republic of Korea ranked first, with Finland second and Turkey third.
Bibliometric analysis allows us to understand contributions of different world regions in scientific research in the field of arthroscopy and gives insight into the quantity and quality of articles related to arthroscopy.
Bibliometric analyses of publications in the field of restless legs syndrome
2023, Acta Neurologica Belgica
The research environment of critical care in three Asian countries: A cross-sectional questionnaire survey
2022, Frontiers in Medicine

View all citing articles on Scopus

^☆: Conflicts of interest: None.

^☆☆: Financial sponsorship and support: None.

¹: Li Z and Qiu LX contributed equally to this study.

View full text

Assessing the national productivity in subspecialty critical care medicine journals: A bibliometric analysis☆,☆☆

Abstract

Purpose

Materials and Methods

Results

Conclusion

Introduction

Section snippets

Methods

Results

Discussion

Clin Chim Acta

National representation in the anaesthesia literature: a bibliometric analysis of highly cited anaesthesia journals

Anaesthesia

Worldwide research productivity in critical care medicine

Crit Care

World Bank list of economies