Research in Medicine

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Background: An increase in the number of medical schools in Iran has caused a conspicuous escalation in medical research during recent years with the numbers of papers published in Iranian and international biomedical journals increasing annually. In addition to quantitative indices, the evaluation of medical research in Iran requires qualitative parameters. The aim of this study is the qualitative assessment of medical research in Iran regarding, specially, one of its outputs, i.e. papers published in international journals and its comparison to medical research in Pakistan and Egypt. Materials and methods: Papers published in international journals from Iran, Pakistan and Egypt in 1992, 1996, 1999, and 2002 were acquired through searching in PubMed databank. To evaluate the quality of papers, we used the impact factor (IF) of journals publishing the paper. The IF of journals was obtained through the official site of the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) and the mean IF for these 3 countries was calculated separately. Results: In 1992, the numbers of indexed papers from Iran, Pakistan and Egypt were 61, 82 and 387, respectively. The mean IF of journals publishing Iranian papers was 1.130.94 in 1992, being 1.252.15 for Pakistan and 1.111.64 for Egypt. In 2002, numbers of indexed papers from Iran, Pakistan and Egypt were 508, 229 and 668, respectively. In the same year, the mean IF of journals publishing Iranian papers was 1.360.98 while it was 1.752.88 for Pakistan and 1.231.57 for Egypt. The obtained results showed 733% quantitative growth of Iranian papers during the 1992-2002 period, which was noticeably higher than Egypt and Pakistan. Also, the mean IF of journals publishing Iranian papers increased from 1.13 to 1.36 during that period. Conclusion: Upgrading of the IF of journals publishing Iranian papers may indicate enhancement of the quality of those papers, i.e. Iranian research, now enhanced, is eligible for publication in journals with higher Ifs. It must however be kept in mind that on the whole, the mean IF of journals could have increased during that period. The results of this investigation lead us to conclude that medical research in Iran, as compared to Pakistan and Egypt, has definitely progressed quantitatively during the years 1992-2002 and it can also be claimed, at least, that the quality of research has not declined during theses years.

Keywords: Research, Iran, Impact factor, Pakistan, Egypt

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