Thematic Convergence of Iran's Scientific Productions in the Field of Health

This study focuses on the status of the constituent parts of the health domain in terms of convergence and the proximity of content between them. The purpose of the study was to investigate the convergence of subjects in Iranian scientific productions in the field of health indexed in the Scopus during 2007-2016 period. For data analysis, co-occurrence analysis of vocabulary and drawing a scientific map and social network analysis methods were used. The study population included all scientific productions in the field of health indexed in the Scopus which contained a total of 8616 documents. Co-word occurrence and pair matrix between subfields or health domain categories as well as the scientific map of the health domain were drawn using different methods and software. The largest share of science production among the sub-domains of the health was observed in the field of Sports Science. In terms of convergence and proximity, the topics of Physical Therapy, Sports Therapy and Rehabilitation were convergent with all the constituents of health domain, which suggests that this area is an area which includes the concepts from other constituent areas of the health domain. The highest degree of convergence in terms of common concepts was observed between Physical Therapy, Sports Therapy and Rehabilitation, and Radiological and Ultrasound Technology. Finally, the results of conceptual maps created by VOSviewer software showed 3 clusters. There are a number of sub-areas of health that have a thematic or content convergence, which indicates that there are common concepts between them. Therefore, this study will help specialists in this field to create interdisciplinary fields or new research fronts between the areas with higher convergence.