Bibliometric Study of periodontal publications by Iranian authors between 1995-2015: A Medline approach

One of the methods to measure scientific achievement in a particular field is bibliometric analysis of scientific publications. The main goals of this study were bibliometric analysis of Iranian periodontal literature, study design, and topics investigated in periodontal research published from 1995 to 2015 in PubMed.
PubMed search strategy was developed to identify all the international papers published in the field of periodontology (periodontics) by the Iranian scientists between 1995 and 2015. We performed the search protocol by typing “periodont*” in the title/abstract search box, and also the word “Iran” in the affiliation search box. We reviewed all the abstracts and removed the unrelated articles from the study. Retrieved data were analyzed using SPSS.
Total of 178 papers from 83 peer-reviewed journals were found from the PubMed database and were reviewed. Seventy articles (37.4%) were published in Iranian PubMed indexed journals, and 117 (62.6%) papers were published in the journals of other countries. According to the publication type of the articles, 173 (92.5%) of them were original research papers, 6 articles (3.2%) were review papers, and 5 papers (2.7%) were case reports. The results indicated that maximum number of articles was published in 2013. The most frequent article types were cross-sectional studies (29.9%) followed by clinical trials (22.5%) and case-control studies (18.7%).
In recent years, the periodontal research production has made significant progress in Iran. It seems that the Iranian periodontists should emphasize more on the design and quality of works in addition to the quantity of articles.