The research output from medical institutions in South Asia between 2012 and 2017: An analysis of their quantity and quality

Abstract

IntroductionThe eight countries of South Asia share similar backgrounds, together with similar health care related problems and a lack of medical facilities. They also have a total of 828 medical institutions both in the public and private sectors but sadly, their research output is generally thought to be poor both in quality and quantity. MethodsWe analyzed the research output from this region in terms of the number of publications in indexed journals, their citations and the h-index of the institutions using the Scopus database between 201217. These were compared with ten randomly selected leading institutes of the world. ResultsOnly 353 (42.7%) had produced a single indexed research article in the six years of the study period. The cumulative research output of all the countries during this period was 97,170, the biggest contributor being India (86.3%) followed by Pakistan (9.9%) and Bangladesh (1.4%). In terms of the mean number of the citations and h-index, India led with 1775 citations per institute with a mean h-index of 12.1. ConclusionDespite the immense health problems facing the countries, the overall research output from the South Asian countries is poor as evidenced by the cumulative number of publications or a comparison on a global scale. This needs urgent and serious attention. We suggest that intercountry research collaborations, student exchanges, compulsory research projects in undergraduate and postgraduate curricula, adequate funding, and incentives for research publication may be some of the ways forward.