The Relation between Iranian Medical Science Research in Scopus Database and Burden of Disease in Iran

Background and Scientific productions have been accelerated in Iran in past decades but their association with health problems and disease burden is doubtful. The aim of this study was to assess the relationship between Iranian scientific productions (published in 2010-2014) with disease burden in Iran using Scopus database. Data was collected using Scientometric indicators, direct observation, and notetaking. The current research included all articles written by Iranian researchers during 2010 to 2014 which were published in Scopus- indexed journals. The search was limited to the affiliation ‘Iran’ and was performed using different keywords including road accident, ischemic heart diseases, major depression disorders, and cerebral vascular diseases. These were believed to have the highest disease burden. Then, the scientometric outputs were recorded and the relationship between scientific productions with disease burden was investigated. In total, 2824 articles had been published in Scopus-indexed journals. Among them depression disorders and addiction had the highest (1530 records) and lowest (62 records) records, respectively. Major depression disorders were found to have the greatest h-index and the highest percentage of scientific productions with at least one citation was associated with addiction. There was a direct correlation between years of life lost due to premature mortality (r=0.8, P=0.2), years lived with disability (r=0.2, P=0.8), and mortality rate (r=0.9, P=0.205) with scientific productions. According to our results, Iranian scientific productions in Scopus database are not related to disease burden in Iran however, they reflect high mortality diseases.