Abstract
Family medicine is one of the most vital health specialties in the field of medicine. This can be attributed to the wide range of health services for all people regardless of age, gender, and diagnosis. Saudi Arabia as suggested by various studies put more of its attention at all levels to family medicine in order to produce an adequate number of family physicians and improve both the academic aspects and the services provided by family medicine in the country. Thus, a comprehensive national survey was suggested to analyze the current situation of the specialty in the country and to draw up a strategic plan to achieve the national vision for family medicine by 2020. In light of the aforementioned, this study deemed it necessary to examine family medicine research productivity in Saudi Arabia in order to recommend possible measures to increase the quality of research output related to the field. The Web of Science (WoS) bibliographic database search engine was used to retrieve and analyze data. The terms “Family Medicine” and “Saudi Arabia” were entered in the search address fields using the SAME boolean operator (i.e., Family Medicine SAME Saudi Arabia) to retrieve records that contained these two terms and were in the same address. Research articles that were published from 1 January 2004 to 31 December 2018 were included for data analysis. Publication details such as the year of publication, document type, research area, authors’ affiliation, journal name, international collaborators, journal impact factor (JIF), and citation reports were all considered in the analysis. As for the result, Saudi Arabia’s research productivity in the field of family medicine is very poor, with a very gradual linear increase over the last 15 years. Further, health institutions have low research productivity compared to universities and medical colleges. Finally, most of the publications were published in low- or no-impact-factor journals. Therefore, this study concludes that Saudi Arabia has had low research productivity in family medicine. It recommends that an educational research program with the supervision of Ministry of Health (MOH) be implemented among family medicine physicians featuring organizational support and well-structured communication between health and educational institutions to increase research productivity in the country.
Highlights
Background family medicine is still an emerging specialty that is struggling to find its niche in the medical profession worldwide, there is no denying that it is one of the most vital fields of medicine
Even though Middle Eastern culture is known for its solid family network, family medicine in Saudi Arabia has grown gradually and became known medical specialty in Arab nations [2]
The search was performed on 30 May 2019 to maximize the search results. This was done to include research articles published in certain biomedical journals for the month of December 2018, which typically appear in the Web of Science (WoS) index within 2-14 days after the journal issue is submitted for indexing
Summary
Family medicine is still an emerging specialty that is struggling to find its niche in the medical profession worldwide, there is no denying that it is one of the most vital fields of medicine. This can be attributed to the wide range of health services that it provides to all people regardless of age, gender, and affected organ or system. Recognition of the specialty began in 1978 with the Alma Ata Declaration It was issued by the World Health Organization General Assembly when the country recognized improving primary health care (PHC), one of the significant systems for delivering high-quality health services [3]. Saudi Arabia advanced and adjusted the idea of PHC in 1983, using it as the basis for its healthcare system [4]; this later led to an upgraded delivery of services [5]
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