Scientific Publication Performance of Turkish Anaesthesia Clinics in High Impact Factor International Journals Between 2005 and 2014: A Bibliometric Analysis.

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 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.