Worldwide research productivity in the field of electronic cigarette: a bibliometric analysis.

Sa’Ed H Zyoud,Waleed M Sweileh,Samah W Al-Jabi

doi:10.1186/1471-2458-14-667

Abstract

BackgroundElectronic cigarette (EC) is an emerging phenomenon that is becoming increasingly popular with smokers worldwide. There is a lack of data concerning the evaluation of research productivity in the field of EC originating from the world. The main objectives of this study were to analyse worldwide research output in EC field, and to examine the authorship pattern and the citations retrieved from the Scopus database.MethodsData were searched for documents with specific words regarding EC as “keywords” in the title. Scientific output was evaluated based on the methodology developed and used in other bibliometric studies by investigation: (a) total and trends of contributions in EC research during all previous years up to the date of data analysis (June 13, 2014); (b) authorship patterns and research productivity; (c) countries contribution; and (d) citations received by the publications.ResultsThree hundred and fifty-six documents were retrieved comprising 31.5% original journal articles, 16% letters to the editor, 7.9% review articles, and 44.6% documents that were classified as other types of publications, such as notes or editorials or opinions. The retrieved documents were published in 162 peer-reviewed journals. All retrieved documents were published from 27 countries. the largest number of publications in the field of EC was from the United States of America (USA); (33.7%), followed by the United Kingdom (UK); (11.5%), and Italy (8.1%). The total number of citations at the time of data analysis was 2.277, with an average of 6.4 citations per document and median (interquartile range) of 0.0 (0.0–5.0). The h-index of the retrieved documents was 27. The most productive institutions were Food and Drug Administration, USA (4.2% of total publications) followed by Universita degli Studi di Catania, Italy (3.9%), University of California, San Francisco, USA (3.7%).ConclusionsThis bibliometric study is a testament to the progress in EC research from the world over the last few years. More effort is needed to bridge the gap in EC-based research and to promote better evaluation of EC, risks, health effects, or control services worldwide.

Highlights

Electronic cigarette (EC) is an emerging phenomenon that is becoming increasingly popular with smokers worldwide
The evolution of scientific research output in the field of tobacco use has been poorly explored to date, and there are very few internationally bibliometric studies published within the field of tobacco use [18,19,20,21,22,23,24]
For the period from 2007 to 2014, the annual number of documents published indicates that EC research productivity was low in the first years but showed an obvious increasing in the recent years

Summary

Introduction

Electronic cigarette (EC) is an emerging phenomenon that is becoming increasingly popular with smokers worldwide. There is a lack of data concerning the evaluation of research productivity in the field of EC originating from the world. Cigarette smoking is one of the leading health care problems in the world [1]. This is because cigarette smoking causes a broad range of diseases such as lung cancer, strokes, heart disease, chronic lung disease and other cancers, many of which are fatal. Worldwide and during the last few years; several studies have measured and analysed the scientific research output [10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17]. To the best of our knowledge, there is a lack of data concerning the evaluation of research productivity in the field of EC originating from the world

Objectives

Methods

Results