A scientometric investigation of the publication trends of Iranian medical informatics articles based on ISI Citation Databases

This study investigates the qualitative and quantitative developments of medical informatics articles in Iran from 1987 to 2009, based on ISI Citation databases. The analysis included date of publication, type of document, language of the article, source of publication, subject areas, and the countries involved in developing the articles. Citation indicators formed the second phase of investigation in this study. In the third phase, the citing articles were analyzed in terms of their date of publication, type of document, language, subject area, citation sources and the country where citation had taken place. The publications, with some fluctuations, followed a rising trend until 2007, but after this date there was some decline in publishing such articles. Among 62 documented articles investigated, 58 were published in journals, and the remaining four were presented in conferences. The language of all 62 articles was English. Britain had the greatest contribution, i.e. 13 (21%) documents, in publishing such articles. Regarding their subject area, most of the articles, i.e. 28 (45%) documents, dealt with “health care sciences and health services”. As for their source of publication, 7 (11.29%) articles had been published in the Medical and Biological Engineering and Computing Journal. The greatest number of citations belonged to 2005 while the greatest number of H-Index and citation average per year belonged to 2007. There were a total of 196 citations to 62 articles, out of 186 articles. 20% of all citing articles embarked uopn self-citation. The overall average for referencing to each article was 3.16 and the H-Index of all Iranian medical informatics articles was 7. Most of the citing articles belonged to more recent years. The language of most citing articles was English. Most of the references to the articles first belonged to scholars from the United States, i.e. 41 (22%) times, and then to those from Iran, i.e. 40 (21.5%) times. The greatest number of citing articles (12 articles or 6.45%) were published in the journal of Medical and Biological Engineering and Computing. Generally speaking, the year 2007 seemed to mark a turning point in publishing the greatest number of medical infortmatics articles from Iran. The articles published this year showed some improvement in quality as well.