Longitudinal patterns in Spanish doctoral theses on scientific medical information: a tertiary study

Abstract

This longitudinal study concerns the analysis of 347 doctoral theses on scientific medical information retrieved from the TESEO database and defended in Spanish universities from 1977 to 2018. At the same time, it considers other factors, such as the geographical scope distinguishing between dissertations defended in the Spanish region of Levante and in the rest of Spain, and discusses the gender of the authors and whether the general scientometric topic is eminently bibliometric or just related to the computerisation process. The longitudinal global finding is a bimodal trend rejecting the Price model of science growth. Our study reveals that this production came initially from the universities located in the Spanish Levante. Despite the recent increase of theses covering computerisation topics, the theses on scientific medical information are mostly bibliometric. In addition, men were more productive than women but no statistically significant differences in the quantity and in the longitudinal trends according to the authors’ gender were observed. Nevertheless, women show a growing lineal pattern. An overall conclusion that could be inferred is that the prestige gained by the Spanish scientific medical information is the result, to a considerable extent, of the remarkable efforts performed by its researchers.