Full Texts Erature, to Rank Them in Terms of Scientific Performance, of Publications
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Turk J Anaesthesiol Reanim 2017; 45: 16-25 DOI: 10.5152/TJAR.2016.16680 Scientific Publication Performance of Turkish Anaesthesia Clinics in High Impact Factor International Journals Between 2005 and Original ArticleOriginal 2014: A Bibliometric Analysis Hüseyin Oğuz Yılmaz1, Rovnat Babazade2, Oğuz Alp Turan3, Betül Babazade4, Onur Koyuncu5, Alparslan Turan6 1Department of Anaesthesiology and Reanimation, Etimesgut Sait Ertürk State Hospital, Ankara, Turkey 2Department of Anesthesiology, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, Texas, USA 3Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, Case Western Reserve University, Oh, USA 4Department of Therapy and Rehabilitation, Cleveland Clinic Children, Oh, USA 5Department of Anaesthesiology and Reanimation, Mustafa Kemal University Tayfur Ata Sökmen School of Medicine, Hatay, Turkey 6Department of Outcomes Research, Anesthesiology Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Oh, USA Objective: International scientific publication productivity is a tangible indicator for the accuracy of scientific policies. The quality of scientific publications is not increasing despite the fast increase in the publication count in Turkey. The international publication activities of Turkish anaesthesia clinics have not been previously explored. Thus, we aimed to evaluate the high quality scientific productivity of Abstract Abstract Turkish anesthesia clinics within the last 10 years. Methods: We searched for studies conducted by anaesthesiologists in Turkey within the last 10 years and published in journals listed under the medical subject categories of anaesthesiology and critical care using ‘Thomson Reuters InCites’ and PubMed databases. We recorded publication year, subject, method, citation count and origin of each paper and conducted descriptive analyses. Results: There were 630 papers meeting our inclusion criteria. Among those, 525 (83%) were studies on anaesthesia, 66 (10%) were studies on critical care and 39 (6%) were studies on pain. The average citation count was 9.90. There were 376 controlled/randomized controlled trials, 98 observational studies, 66 laboratory studies, 64 case series/reports, 5 reviews and 21 letters to the editor. Studies were conducted by universities (82.4%), by training and research hospitals (15.56%), by state and military hospitals (0.63%) and by physicians in private practice (1.27%). Baskent University had the highest publication count, Istanbul University had the highest citation count and Trakya University had the highest publication count per faculty teaching staff. Conclusion: The high-impact scientific productivity of Turkish anesthesia clinics is in a downward trend in the last 10 years, and the average citation count is lower than the global average. Keywords: Turkey, anaesthesia, national bibliography, bibliometric analysis, anaesthesia publications from Turkey Introduction easuring international publication activities is one of the important indicators used to assess the level of scien- tific development of countries (1). Although it is criticized intensively (2-4), indexes prepared on the basis of international publications and the citations to these publications are frequently used by states, higher education Minstitutions, independent evaluation institutions, and even the media in the world and in our country to evaluate the sci- entific performance and rank among the institutions (5-13). Measuring publication activities can also be seen as one of the concrete indicators of whether the science policy is being carried out properly. The same approach can be used on a smaller scale, for science branches and professional organizations. Prepared by the Council of Higher Education (CHE) in 2009, a report on the scientific indicators of Turkey indicates that the relative citation factor of Turkey is below the world average in all areas (14). Subsequently, the fact that the number of international publications is accepted by the CHE and universities as a basic criterion for academic promotions, and the incentives granted has rapidly increased the importance given to international scientific publications and the number of publications (15, 16). However, despite the increase in the number of publications, the same increase in the assessment criteria of the publication quality is not seen (8, 17, 18). Received : 16.05.2016 Address for Correspondences: Hüseyin Oğuz Yılmaz E-mail: [email protected] Accepted : 14.11.2016 16 ©Copyright 2017 by Turkish Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care Society - Available online at www.jtaics.org Available Online Date : 18.01.2017 Yılmaz et al. International Publication Performance of Turkish Anesthesia Clinics The number of publications which discusses the difficulties published only in the journals that we had determined be- of making scientific publications in the field of anaesthesia, fore, and we started detailed examination. proposes solutions, or shares experiences is limited in our country (19, 20). Studies have been conducted to examine First, we reviewed the abstracts of the publications one by the contributions of emergency medicine (21-24), pathol- one and excluded the publications that were not about of ogy (25), endocrine surgery (26), and cardiology (27) to anaesthesia, intensive care, or pain or did not have an an- the international literature. However in Turkey, as far as we aesthesiologist on the author list. Then, we classified the know, there is not yet an analysis that evaluates the scientif- remaining publications according to their subjects (anaes- ic studies which are published in high-impact journals list- thesia, pain, intensive care), according to the type of the ed in international indexes in the field of anaesthesia. The publication (review/compilation/letter, case report/serie, assessment of the current situation is necessary for plan- laboratory study, clinical study), and according to the type ning and managing the development of our speciality and of institution (university hospital, education and research institutions in terms of scientific publication performance. hospital (ERH), state hospital, private hospital). While de- termining the name of the institution, we considered the For these reasons, we aimed to review the contribution of institution of the first anaesthetist from Turkey in the list anaesthesia institutions in our country to international lit- of authors. In cases of doubt, we resorted to the full texts erature, to rank them in terms of scientific performance, of publications. In order to make an evaluation about the and to evaluate the course within the last 10 years by exam- citations counts of publications and institutions, we found ining the articles published by Turkey in international high the articles one by one in the Web of Science (WoS) data- impact factor (IF) anaesthesia journals. base between August, 15 and August 25, 2015, and record- Methods ed the total number of citations until the date of the query. By using descriptive methods, we determined the course of A bibliometric analysis has been made in this research, in- the publication count according to the topics and types of cluding the articles on the subject of anaesthesia, pain, and publications over the years. Because their organization and intensive care and published by the anaesthesiologists in abilities are quite different, we sorted university hospitals Turkey in the last 10 years (2005--2014). These journals are and ERHs separately by the number of publications, the listed in the subject category of anaesthesia and intensive number of citations, and the number of publications per care in the "Thomson Reuters In Cities” database and have academic staff. We identified the number of academic staff an IF above 1. Data were evaluated by 4 researchers (H.O.Y., by counting the professors, associate professors, and assis- R.B., F.B.B., O.A.T.) in parts, and in case of doubt, they were tant professors that listed on the web pages of the anaesthe- re-evaluated by H.O.Y. and A.T. for final decision. sia departments of university websites in December 2015. We did not include the instructors and specialists in this To determine the journals to be evaluated, we listed the count. We did not make the last ranking for ERHs because journals which were in the subject categories of anaesthesi- the data were not adequate on the websites of most ERHs. ology and critical care medicine, and which had an IF over Many ERH were affiliated with newly established universi- 1 in 2013 in the “In Cities Journal Citation Reports (JCR)” ties in 2013 and 2014 and their names were changed. As we database, then we transferred them to the data table we evaluated the publications of the last 10 years retrospective- have created. At the time of the interrogation, there was no ly, we decided to consider these institutions not as univer- separate category of pain, and the journals about pain were sity hospitals but as ERH in accordance with their previous listed in the subject category of “anesthesiology.” organizational structures. To determine the publications to be evaluated, we made a Results search on the PubMed database, including the keywords “Turkey” and “anaesthesia, pain, intensive care” in the field A total of 51 journals were found in the JCR database under of author affiliations on February 6, 2015, and we limited the subject categories of anaesthesiology and intensive care the results within the dates ranging from January 1, 2005, medicine, and it was seen that 46 of them had an IF above 1 to December 31, 2014. The exact query text was as follows: