Research cartography of implantable medical devices in the three Maghreb countries: A comparative study between Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia

Abstract

Biosafety and efficacy are essential aspects in the use of implantable medical devices (IMD) in several medical and surgical disciplines. To this effect, and depending on the therapeutic indication, the diversity of IMD imposes enormous evaluation strategies from their design through to their impact on improving the patient's quality of life. To elaborate cartography which traces back the research tracks published on IMD regarding the three Maghreb countries, namely Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, and this through laying emphasis on a comparative study in view of highlighting the similarities and differences between them. First, the research work was concerned with studies on IMD published between 2013 and 2023, which met the inclusion criteria, and which used the above-mentioned keywords on the four databases Scopus, Web of Science, ScienceDirect and PubMed. Second, the results are processed for a comparative descriptive study. In second, a descriptive and inferential analysis of association and classification to establish a research map on IMD. Articles selected; 86 articles out of 1081 for Morocco, 70 out of 900 for Algeria and 136 out of 1303 for Tunisia. Unlike domains (P=0.014), the research methods used highlights similarities in methodological research (P>0.05) ranging from simple descriptions to meta-analyses for the medical sciences with an inequitable distribution whose high share in favor of patient-reports. The design of maps raises a diversity of fields that concern medical and engineering sciences, while medical economic studies have yet to be developed in all three countries.