The Impact of International Research Collaborations on the Citation Metrics and the Scientific Potential of South American Palliative Care Research: Bibliometric Analysis.

Crislaine De Lima,David Hui,Camilla Zimmermann,Eduardo Bruera,Pedro Emilio Perez-Cruz,Martins Fideles Dos Santos Neto,Carlos Eduardo Paiva,Bianca Sakamoto Ribeiro Paiva

doi:10.5334/aogh.3158

Abstract

Background:Progress in palliative care (PC) requires scientific advances which could potentially be catalyzed by international research collaboration (IRC). It is currently not known how often IRC occurs with PC investigators in South America.Objectives:To evaluate the percentage of South America journal articles on PC involving IRCs and the impact of these collaborations on the scientific potential the studies and on their citations.Methods:This was a bibliometric analysis of studies published between January 1, 1998, and December 31, 2017. A search of Pubmed, Embase, Lilacs, and Web of Science (WOS) was performed using the terms “palliative care,” “hospice care,” “hospices” and “terminal care,” combined with the name of South America countries. The scientific potential was assessed by analyzing study design, characteristics of the journal and funding. IRCs were further subdivided in internal (within South America countries) and external (with countries outside South America).Findings:Of the 641 articles, 117 (18.2%) involved IRCs (internal: 18, 2.8%; external: 110, 17.2%). Articles with IRCs had higher median two-year citations in WOS (2 vs. 1, p < 0.001), Scopus (3 vs. 1, p < 0.001) and Google Scholar (4.5 vs. 2, p < 0.001) compared to articles without IRC. Moreover, they were more often funded (40.7% vs. 9.7%, p < 0.001), published in Pubmed-indexed (76.1% vs. 41.6%; p < 0.001) and in WOS-indexed (70.1% vs. 29.6%; p < 0.001) journals, and with study designs most often classified as clinical trial (5.1% vs. 1.0%; p = 0.002) and cohort (10.3% vs. 2.9%; p < 0.001) compared to articles without IRC.Conclusions:Studies with international research collaborations, both internal and external to South America, are more frequently cited and have characteristics with greater scientific potential than do studies without international collaborations.

Highlights

Progress in palliative care (PC) requires scientific advances which could potentially be catalyzed by international research collaboration (IRC)
Articles published in the period from January 1, 1998, to December 31, 2017, were identified using the keywords (MeSH terms) “palliative care,” “hospice care,” “hospices” and “terminal care,” combined with the geographic location of the following South America countries: “Brazil,” “Argentina,” “Chile,” “Peru,” “Colombia,” “Ecuador,” “Paraguay,” “Uruguay,” “Venezuela” and “Bolivia.” The present work is part of a larger study named Los Pampas which will compare the scientific production of South American countries
A total of 4063 articles were identified in the electronic search, and further 196 were added by complementary manual search

Summary

Objectives

To evaluate the percentage of South America journal articles on PC involving IRCs and the impact of these collaborations on the scientific potential the studies and on their citations

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion