Top 100 most cited papers on medicinal plants research

Abstract

Background: The idea of the paper is to identify trends and examine the characteristics of the top 100 cited papers on medicinal plants research. Methods: Web of Science citation database was queried to identify the citations of the top 100 most cited papers on medicinal plants research. R and Excel statistical software were employed to extract bibliographic data on various parameters such as number of authors, publication year, journal name, country of origin, research collaboration, trend of research etc. The top 100 cited papers were extracted for further statistical and visual analysed on various grounds. Results: 100 top-cited articles were identified where these papers published in 51 journals, led by Journal of Ethnopharmacology (36 papers) and other journals. All most cited papers were published during 1993 to 2020. The common areas of study were categorized as radical scavenging activities of medicinal plants, antioxidant behaviour of medicinal plants, antiviral and anti-bacterial application, use of medicinal plants in diagnosis and treatment of various diseases such diabetes and cancer etc. India and China emerged as leading nations performing medicinal plants research and greater author’s collaboration were witnessed in medicinal plants research with an overall collaboration index of 4.39.