Analysis of thematic and co-authorship maps of the articles in the Journal of Research on Addiction: a Scientometric study

Scientific productions can be studied from a variety of dimensions one of the most common of which is the drawing of scientific maps that can provide a clearer and more comprehensive view of the required analyses. The aim of this study was to draw and analyze the thematic map and co-authorship network of the articles of the Journal of Research on Addiction.

This descriptive-analytical study was performed based on a scientometric approach using co-word and network analysis. The research population was all articles of the Journal of Research on Addiction from 2005 to 2018. RavarMatrix, UCINET and NetDraw were used to analyze the data.

Data analysis showed that 463 articles were published in this Journal in 2005-2007. The analysis of co-word map of the articles published in the Journal of Research on Addiction indicated that subjects such as addiction, addict, drug abuse, attitude, dependence, craving, women, depression, addiction preparation, mental health, quality of life, students and self-efficacy were among the most important issues. Moreover, drawing and analyzing the co-authorship network of these papers illustrated six clusters. The study of centrality indicators represented that Mohammad Khani, Mohammadifar and Najafi are the most important authors.

The co-word map suggested that the thematic approach was more psychological than medical. Therefore, it is necessary to determine various thematic ranges for this Journal and to consider other types of addiction.