The standing of clinical research in Germany - distribution of experimental versus clinical research in anaesthesia

Abstract

Clinical research has been proposed to be less active and less attractive in Germany. The distribution of clinical versus experimental research of German university departments of anesthesiology was analysed. With the help of Medline all articles published from all German university anesthesiology departments in German and English in 1998 and 1999 were analysed and specified with regard to the following subtypes: experimental research, clinical research, miscellaneous (reviews, questionnaires). 369 articles in German and 545 articles in English language were specified. From the German publications 129 articles were derived from clinical research (35 % of all papers), 29 papers were from experimental research (8 % of all papers), and 211 papers were miscellaneous articles (57 % of all papers). From the publications in English language, 291 papers were from clinical research (53 % of all articles), 195 were from experimental research (36 % of all articles), and 59 papers were miscellaneous articles (11 % of all articles). Clinical research was published more often in German, whereas experimental studies were published more often in English. Some anesthesia departments prefer to focus their research efforts mainly on experimental research. It is tempting to speculate whether concentration on experimental research is beneficial for research in the field of anesthesia in Germany.