Scientific publications in gastroenterology and hepatology in Taiwan: An analysis of Web of Science from 1993 to 2013.

BACKGROUND: Scientific publications are important for evaluating the achievements of a medical specialty or discipline. Gastroenterology and Hepatology is a medical specialty in great demand in Taiwan, therefore, this study aimed to analyze the Gastroenterology and Hepatology publications from 1993 to 2013 in Taiwan, using the Web of Science (WoS) database.

METHODS: Scientific publications from departments/institutes of gastroenterology and hepatology were retrieved and analyzed from the WoS database, which included articles published in the Science Citation Index Expanded and Social Science Citation Index journals from 1993 to 2013.

RESULTS: Among 229,030 articles published from departments/institutes of gastroenterology and hepatology worldwide during 1993-2013, 5061 (2.21%) were published in Taiwan, ranking the country 13(th) in the world. In total, 4759 articles from Taiwan were selected for further analysis, excluding meeting abstracts and corrections. During these two decades, the number of gastroenterology and hepatology publications increased rapidly. There were 440 articles published during 1993-1997, 646 articles during 1998-2002, 1211 articles during 2003-2007, and up to 2462 articles during 2008-2013. However, the mean number of articles cited decreased from 25.35 to 27.25 to 20.64 to 7.28, and the mean impact factor of publishing journals decreased from 5.0 to 4.20 to 4.13 to 4.03 during 1993-1997, 1998-2002, 2003-2007, and 2008-2013, respectively. Most of those publications belong to the subject category gastroenterology and hepatology (2346 articles, 49.30%), followed by surgery (677 articles, 14.23%), medicine, general and internal (358 articles, 7.52%), oncology (316 articles, 6.64%), and pharmacology pharmacy (286 articles, 6.01%). The Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology published the most papers (326 articles, 6.9%), followed by World Journal of Gastroenterology (201 articles, 4.2%), Hepato-Gastroenterology (165 articles, 3.5%), Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (159 articles, 3.3%), and Hepatology (146 articles, 3.1%).

CONCLUSION: Scientific publications from departments/institutes of gastroenterology and hepatology in Taiwan increased rapidly from 1993 to 2013. However, there were decreasing trends in the number of articles cited and journal impact factors.