Bibliometric Analysis of HIV/AIDS Research Publication Trends in Uganda from 1982 to 2020

Abstract

Background: The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) epidemic continues to be a major global health concern, with approximately 38 million people living with the disease, with over two-thirds of those (25.4 million) living in the WHO African Region. In 2020, 680,000 people will die from HIV-related causes, while 1.5 million will acquire the virus. Bibliometric methodologies were used to investigate and analyze the scientific research development on HIV/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) in Uganda. Methods: A comprehensive retrospective bibliometric analysis was performed on HIV/AIDS literature in Uganda published from 1982 until 2020 and was retrieved using Harzing’s Publish or Perish. We extracted the publications from the Google Scholar database. To ensure all retrieved publications address HIV/AIDS issues in Uganda, a search strategy with "HIV" or "AIDS" and "Uganda" as keywords was performed using the keywords field to refine the results. Results: A total of 446 publications were selected and used. The findings indicated that Relative Growth Rate (RGR) had increased from 0.29 (1996) to 3.40 (2020) with some fluctuations between the years, with a decreasing trend from 2.39 (1996) to 0.20 (2020) with slight fluctuations between the years. The majority of publications (60.3 percent) were written by a single author, with the remainder (15.2%) written collaboratively by two writers.More than half (59.64%) of the publications were cited at least once. In Uganda, research on HIV/AIDS is mostly published by international journal publishers rather than African journal publishers. Journals of medicine-related titles have the most articles published about HIV/AIDS research in Uganda, while gender-related journals have the least. Conclusion: According to the findings, in Uganda, HIV/AIDS researchers generally collaborated poorly, and researchers tended to publish more with Francis and Taylor, Springer, Elsevier, and Wiley than with other publishers. However, there was relative HIV/AIDS research growth overtime.