A bibliometric analysis of toxicology research productivity in Middle Eastern Arab countries during a 10-year period (2003–2012)

BackgroundBibliometric studies are increasingly being used for research assessment by involving the application of statistical methods to scientific publications to obtain the bibliographics for each country. The main objective of this study was to analyse the research productivity originating from 13 Middle Eastern Arab (MEA) countries with articles published in toxicology journals.MethodsData from January 1, 2003 till December 31, 2012 were searched for documents with specific words in the toxicology field as a “source title” in any one of the 13 MEA countries. Research productivity was evaluated based on a methodology developed and used in other bibliometric studies. Research productivity was adjusted to the national population and nominal gross domestic product (GDP) per capita.ResultsDocuments (n = 1,240) were retrieved from 73 international peer-reviewed toxicology journals. The h-index of the retrieved documents was 39. Of the 73 journal titles, 52 (69.9%) have their IF listed in the ISI Journal Citation Reports 2012; 198 documents (16.0%) were published in journals that had no official IF. After adjusting for economy and population power, Egypt (193.6), Palestine (18.1), Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) (13.0), and Jordan (11.5) had the highest research productivity. Countries with large economies, such as the Kuwait, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Oman, tended to rank relatively low after adjustment of GDP. The total number of citations at the time of data analysis (August 4, 2013) was 10,991, with a median (interquartile range) of 4 (1–11). MEA collaborated more with countries in the MEA regions (16.7%), especially KSA, Egypt, and UAE, followed by Europe (14.4%), especially with the United Kingdom and Germany.ConclusionsThe present data show a promising rise and a good start for toxicology research activity in toxicology journals in the Arab world. Research output is low in some countries, which can be improved by investing in more international and national collaborative research projects in the field of toxicology.

[1]  H. Benamer,et al.  Visibility of Arab countries in the world biomedical literature , 2011, The Libyan journal of medicine.

[2]  J. Burnham.  Scopus database: a review , 2006, Biomedical digital libraries.

[3]  John P. A. Ioannidis,et al.  Concentration of the Most-Cited Papers in the Scientific Literature: Analysis of Journal Ecosystems , 2006, PloS one.

[4]  T. Cheng,et al.  Worldwide research productivity in the field of rheumatology from 1996 to 2010: a bibliometric analysis. , 2013, Rheumatology.

[5]  G. Tadmouri,et al.  Bibliometric analyses of biomedical research outputs in Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates (1988-2007). , 2009, Saudi medical journal.

[6]  S. Furuie,et al.  Assessing the Scientific Research Productivity of a Brazilian Healthcare Institution: A Case Study at the Heart Institute of São Paulo, Brazil , 2009, Clinics.

[7]  M. Afifi.  Egyptian biomedical publications in PubMed, 1996-2005. , 2007, The Journal of the Egyptian Public Health Association.

[8]  Matthew E Falagas,et al.  Comparison of PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar: strengths and weaknesses , 2007, FASEB journal : official publication of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology.

[9]  Sa’ed H Zyoud,et al.  Medical and biomedical research productivity from Palestine, 2002 – 2011 , 2012, BMC Research Notes.

[10]  Barry Bozeman,et al.  The Impact of Research Collaboration on Scientific Productivity , 2005 .

[11]  A. Kulkarni,et al.  Comparisons of citations in Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar for articles published in general medical journals. , 2009, JAMA.

[12]  H. Benamer,et al.  Scientific publication productivity of Libyan medical schools: a bibliometric study of papers listed in PubMed, 1988-2007. , 2009, Education for health.

[13]  S. Leatherdale,et al.  Building research capacity for evidence-informed tobacco control in Canada: a case description , 2009, Tobacco induced diseases.

[14]  G. Tadmouri,et al.  Biomedical research in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (1982-2000). , 2002, Saudi medical journal.

[15]  R. Wears,et al.  Citation characteristics of research published in Emergency Medicine versus other scientific journals. , 2001, Annals of emergency medicine.

[16]  R. Afshari.  What is the “Best Research” for Low Income Countries? , 2013 .

[17]  A. Jones.  Impact of JAT publications 1981-2003: the most prolific authors and the most highly cited articles. , 2004, Journal of analytical toxicology.

[18]  A. Jones,et al.  Impact factors of forensic science and toxicology journals: what do the numbers really mean? , 2003, Forensic science international.

[19]  Robert G. Easterling.  Comment on Editorial , 1970 .

[20]  A. Alonso-Arroyo,et al.  ¿Qué base de datos debemos emplear para nuestros análisis bibliográficos? Web of Science versus SCOPUS , 2011 .

[21]  Hard Impact: Journal Impact Factor and JMT , 2011, Journal of Medical Toxicology.

[22]  C. Bullen,et al.  Publications as an indicator of increased tobacco control research productivity (quantity and quality) in New Zealand. , 2011, Nicotine & tobacco research : official journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco.

[23]  F. Abu-Zidan,et al.  A quantitative analysis of medical publications from Arab countries. , 2003, Saudi medical journal.

[24]  H. Benamer,et al.  Arab nations lagging behind other Middle Eastern countries in biomedical research: a comparative study , 2009, BMC Medical Research Methodology.

[25]  S. Bird.  Journal impact factors,h indices, and citation analyses in toxicology , 2008, Journal of Medical Toxicology.

[26]  G. Tadmouri,et al.  Biomedical publications in an unstable region: the Arab world, 1988–2002 , 2003, The Lancet.

[27]  Yuh-Shan Ho,et al.  A bibliometric analysis of research on proteomics in Science Citation Index Expanded , 2013, Scientometrics.

[28]  Francesca De Battisti,et al.  Robust analysis of bibliometric data , 2012, Statistical Methods & Applications.

[29]  A. Bauman,et al.  Public health research outputs from efficacy to dissemination: a bibliometric analysis , 2011, BMC public health.

[30]  Justin Yifu Lin,et al.  Shifting patterns of economic growth and rethinking development , 2012 .

[31]  M. Falagas,et al.  A bibliometric analysis in the fields of preventive medicine, occupational and environmental medicine, epidemiology, and public health , 2006, BMC public health.

[32]  Miguel Galicia,et al.  Trends in research activity in toxicology and by toxicologists in seven European countries. , 2009, Toxicology letters.

[33]  Johan A Wallin,et al.  Bibliometric methods: pitfalls and possibilities. , 2005, Basic & clinical pharmacology & toxicology.

[34]  A Bibliometric Analysis of Toxicology Publications of Iran and Turkey in ISI Web of Science , 2013 .

[35]  Charlotte Hubbard,et al.  Introducing Journal of Medical Case Reports , 2007, Journal of medical case reports.

[36]  G. Tadmouri,et al.  A major pitfall in the search strategy on PubMed. , 2004, Saudi medical journal.

[37]  Mohammad Arabi,et al.  Research productivity in Syria: Quantitative and qualitative analysis of current status , 2011, Avicenna Journal of Medicine.

[38]  Adolfo Alonso-Arroyo,et al.  Which data base should we use for our literature analysis? Web of Science versus SCOPUS. , 2011, Archivos de bronconeumologia.

[39]  Julian Birkinshaw,et al.  Scientific Collaboration Results in Higher Citation Rates of Published Articles , 2006, Pharmacotherapy.

[40]  S. Al-Jabi,et al.  A bibliometric analysis of research productivity of Malaysian publications in leading toxicology journals during a 10-year period (2003–2012) , 2014, Human & experimental toxicology.

[41]  Scientific Profile of Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics Fields in Middle East Countries: Impacts of Iranian Scientists , 2010 .