Dental research in Spain. A bibliometric analysis on subjects, authors and institutions (1993-2012)

摘要

Background: Bibliometrics is defined as the use of statistical methods in the analysis of a body of literature toreveal the historical development of subject fields and patterns of authorship, publication, and use. Our objectivewas to characterize Spanish scientific output in Dentistry through the analysis of Web of Science database in a 20-year period. By means of a bibliometric study documents were statistically analyzed using indicators that showedquantitative and qualitative aspects of the production. Specifically, time course of the scientific production withinthe time span was analysed, as were the journals where the article was published and the categories of JournalCitation Reports (JCR) in which they belong, thematic areas, authorship, and finally authors and institutions withthe highest production in Spain.Material and Methods: By means of the design of a specific search strategy previously described in the scientificliterature, we recovered all citable documents about Dentistry signed by Spanish researchers and included in theWoS database between 1993 and 2012.Results: A total of 3006 documents fulfilled the search criteria, of which 2449 (81.5%) were published in journalswithin the category Dentistry Oral Surgery and Medicine and 557 (18.5%) within other categories of the JCR. Duringthe four quinquenniums studied, the production increased quantitatively (8.6-fold) and qualitatively. Finally,the universities of Granada and Complutense of Madrid were the institutions with the highest production and mostprolific authors.Conclusions: The Spanish dental production sharply increased in the last two decades, reaching quantitative andqualitative levels similar to those of the other medical specialties in the country.