Bibliometric analysis on asthma literature
- Author:
Kehu YANG
1
;
Yinshi GUO
;
Zulin XING
Author Information
1. 兰州医学院
- From:
Chinese Medical Journal
1998;111(3):0-0
- CountryChina
- Language:Chinese
-
Abstract:
Objective To provide scientific information for comprehending the progress of asthma research, speculating asthma research trends and selecting the reserach topics and promoting thorough asthma research by studying the speciality distribution of asthma papers.Date and Methods MEDLINE search was conducted to retrieve the papers published between the years 1983-1996 under the main headings of asthma. Nationalities, languages, journals, authors and headings frequency of 24 276 papers were analysed with bibliometrics.Results 24 276 papers on asthma research between the years 1983-1996 were found in MEDLINE. They came from 74 nations and regions, in 27 languages and 451 journals. 91.36% came from America and 14 other nations, while 59 other nations made up less than 9%. Six nations publishing papers more than others were America 8778 (36.4%), England 4143 (17.07%), Denmark 1465 (6.03%), Japan 1288 (5.31%), Germany 1079 (4.44%) and Switzerland 1075 (4.43%). 74.21% were in English and 26 other languages were only 25.8%. The source journals of papers showed the distribution of the Bradford's law. Less than 1% journals carried more than 20% of all papers. 5 journals that carried more papers than others were Am J Respir Crit Care Med 1212 (5%), JAllergy Clin Immunol 1124 (4.63%), Chest 960 (3.96%), Eur Respir J 825 (3.40%), and Ann Allergy Asthma Immunol 800 (3.30%). There were 15 authors who each presented more than 30 papers in first position, among whom, Barnes PJ (English) produced 70 papers, Tanizaki Y (Japanese) 53 papers, Mole JL (Canadian) 48 papers, Sears MR (New Zealander) 47 papers, and Holgate ST (English) 43 papers. The variety of subject heading frequency reflected the hot topics and the developing direction of the research. Heading frequency on asthma research focused on therapeutics 27.20% (including drug therapy 20.07%, comprehensive therapy 7.01%, diet therapy 0.09%, and radiotherapy 0.03%); physiopathology 18.10%; immunology 8.03%; diagnosis 7.88% and etiology 7.82%. It is worth noticing that little has been done before on epidemiology, economics, microbiology and virology of asthma, but literature on these aspects has increased obviously in recent years. Conclusion Asthma literature mainly came from America and 5 other nations. English was the major language. The source journals of the papers showed the distribution of the Bradford's law. Am J Respir Crit Care Med and 4 other journals were core journals of asthma research. Barnes PJ and 14 other authors were the most active and the most important researchers in this field. Treatment, physiopathology, immunology, diagnosis and etiology were the emphasis and hot topics on asthma research. Great attention has been paid to the research on epidemiology, economics, microbiology and virology of asthma year after year.
