Journal of Modern Medical

Introduction
Scientometric indicators are suitable tools for analyzing and monitoring the scientific production of scholars in different countries [5، 6]. Scientometric indicators, such as the number of publications and citations, are sometimes not precisely defined. However, these indicators are increasingly used, such that the quantity and quality of articles indexed by reliable databases are now considered as a measure of a country’s contribution to scientific production and its position in international academic rankings [1]. The use of scientometric indicators can help the officials to identify and eliminate the existing shortcomings and get a better rank [10]. The number of articles published in a country is one of the most widely used scientometric indicators to evaluate the scientific production status of that country [12، 13]. Iran’s scientific production has attracted the attention of scholars in the world, because the number of articles published by Iranian authors and indexed in national and international databases has grown significantly [2]. In the present study, using scientometric data based on the Scopus database, we aim to investigate the scientific growth trend of Iran in different fields of biomedicine during the last two decades.

Methods
Scientometric indicators, including the mean number of published articles, the mean number of citations, and the mean number of citations per article from 1996-2017 for various fields of biomedicine, by year and country, were extracted from the Scopus database. The trend of change in these indicators in a 20-year period was compared with Islamic countries (Iraq, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates) and non-Islamic countries. In addition, according to the World Bank report, the countries were divided into three low-income, middle-income and high-income groups, and the three indicators were compared between Iran and these groups. The population of the countries (based on the reports of the World Health Organization [WHO]) and their gross domestic product (GDP) (based on the World Bank report) were also considered as possible confounding variables, and the number of citations per population/GDP was measured. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the changes in the number of articles and citations, in general and by different fields of biomedicine and years.

Results
In all the years, on mean, North American countries had the highest number of published articles. On the other hand, the mean number of articles published during two decades had an increasing trend in almost all regions. The mean number of articles published in Iran, especially in the last ten years (2007-2017), also showed significant growth, such that from 2009 onwards, the mean number of articles published in Iran was higher than that in other continents (except North America). In line with the growth in the mean number of published articles, the mean number of citations to Iranian articles was higher than the global mean since 2009; in recent years, it has been similar to the mean number of citations to European articles. However, the mean number of citations per article in Iran during the study period was often lower than the global mean, as well as the mean of Asia and other continents, and there was no significant growth.
Regarding the comparison based on GDP, it was shown that the mean number of articles published in Iran had significant growth in recent years, surpassing the mean number of articles in high-income countries. The mean number of citations also increased and it was higher than the mean number of citations in middle-income countries since the beginning of the 2000s. However, the mean number of citations per article was very low in all the study years, such that it was even lower than that in low-income countries.
Regarding the comparison with Islamic and non-Islamic countries, Iran had a more favorable situation than Islamic countries and had a better growth rate in both mean number of published articles and mean number of citations. However, in terms of the number of citations per article, the status of Iran was often lower and sometimes the same as other Islamic countries in recent years.
Regarding the comparison based on population, it was shown that the mean number of citations per million population in Iran was lower than in most of the continents and the global mean in all study years, and no considerable improvement was observed. However, the trend of changes in the mean number of citations per billion dollars of GDP in Iran was generally increasing; in recent years, it has exceeded the global mean level and even the mean in North America.
In Iran in 1996, the subject areas of dermatology, surgery, neurology, infectious diseases and pediatrics ranked first to fifth in terms of the mean number of citations. However, in 2017, the top five subject areas were radiology, public health, infectious diseases, oncology, and endocrinology. In 1996, Iran’s best rank in terms of the number of citations was in the field of urology (ranked 34), while in 2017, the country’s best rank was in the field of complementary medicine (ranked 6). Iran has risen from 63rd in 1996 to 18th in 2017 in terms of the mean number of published articles. In addition, the best performance of Iranian authors in 1996 and 2017 regarding the mean number of published articles was in the area of complementary medicine (ranked 26th and 6th in the world, respectively).

Conclusion
Iran’s global ranking in scientific production has improved from 1996 to 2017, as the mean number of published articles and the mean number of citations have grown significantly in Iran during this period. However, there is a significant weakness in the number of citations per article in Iran. It is necessary to improve this situation through proper policy-making. Among the various fields of biomedicine, Iran has a good global ranking in producing articles in the field of complementary medicine compared to other countries.

Ethical Considerations

Compliance with ethical guidelines
This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences (Code: IR.MUMS.MEDICAL.REC.1398.920)

Funding
This study was taken from the general practitioner thesis of Elham Beglari Beglar, approved by School of Medicine, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences (Code: 980938). The present study was carried out with the support of the research vice-chancellor of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences. 

Authors' contributions
Conceptualization: Majid Khadem Rezaiyan, Lida Jarahi; Methodology: Majid Khadem Rezaiyan; Investigation: Elham Beglari Beglar, Lida Jarahi, Mohammad Moeini Nodeh; Formal analysis: Elham Beglari Beglar, Majid Khadem Rezaiyan; Writing the original draft: Majid Khadem Rezaiyan, and Elham Beglari Beglar; Review and editing: Majid Khadem Rezaiyan, Mohammad Moeini Nodeh, Lida Jarahi, Elham Beglari Beglar; Visualization: Elham Beglari Beglar; Supervision: Mohammad Moeini Nodeh.

Conflicts of interest
The authors declared no conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments
The support of the Research Vice-Chancellor of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences and the Medical Sciences Education Research Center is highly appreciated.


 

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