Spiritual Health Scientific Publications in the Middle East and Iran: A Bibliometric Analysis

Bibliometrics is one of the most common tools for evaluating scientific publications. In recent years, much research has been done in the field of spiritual health. Due to the fact that scientific publications in the field of spiritual health are increasing, the present study was conducted to discover the important actors of scientific publications on spiritual health in the Middle East and Iran.

The present study is an applied type of bibliometric studies that has analyzed the scientific outputs of spiritual health in the Middle East and Iran. The research population included all scientific outputs in the field of spiritual health in the Scopus citation database from the beginning to the end of 2019. Excel computational software was used to analyze the data.

From the beginning to the end of 2019, 644 documents in the field of spiritual health were indexed in Scopus for Middle Eastern countries, of which almost half (48.6% and 313 documents) were published by Iranians. In the section of prolific writers in the field of spiritual health, the strong presence of Iranian writers was evident. Of the five most prolific writers in the Middle East, four were from Iran and one was from Saudi Arabia. At the global level, the field of humanities and at the level of the Middle East and Iran, the field of medical sciences played a significant role in the scientific publications of spiritual health. The results of a survey of institutions and organizations in the field of spiritual health showed that most of the busy organizations and universities in the Middle East are Iranian. Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Iran University of Medical Sciences and Shiraz University of Medical Sciences are the five most active Iranian universities in the field of spiritual health.

Scientific publications in the field of spiritual health have been on the rise in the last two decades and this growth trend is expected to continue. Iranian publications in the field of spiritual health in the world and the Middle East are quantitatively appropriate, but poor in quality and citation. The number of citations to Iranian documents is also low compared to Middle Eastern countries, which can be addressed through international scientific cooperation. Also, the growth trend of documents in the Middle East and Iran is similar to the world publications, upward and growing.