Poison Control and Drug Information Center (PCDIC), College of Medicine and Health Sciences, An-Najah National University, Nablus, Palestine
Samah W. Al-Jabi
Waleed M. Sweileh
Preferred Abstract (Original):
Background: Bibliometric
analysis is increasingly employed as a useful tool to assess the
quantity and quality of research performance. The specific goal of the
current study was to evaluate the performance of research output
originating from Arab world and published in international Integrative
and Complementary Medicine (ICM) journals. Methods: Original
scientific publications and reviews from the 22 Arab countries that
were published in 22 international peer-reviewed ICM journals during all
previous years up to December 31(st) 2013, were screened using the Web
of Science databases. Results: Five
hundred and ninety-one documents were retrieved from 19 ICM journals.
The h-index of the set of papers under study was 47. The highest h-index
was 27 for Morocco, 21 for Jordan, followed by 19 for each Kingdom of
Saudi Arabia (KSA), and Egypt, and the lowest h-index was 1 for each of
Comoros, Qatar, and Syrian Arab Republic. No data related to ICM were
published from Djibouti, and Mauritania. After adjusting for economy and
population power, Somalia (89), Morocco (32.5), Egypt (31.1), Yemen
(21.4), and Palestine (21.2) had the highest research productivity. The
total number of citations was 9,466, with an average citation of 16 per
document. The study identified 262 (44.3 %) documents with 39 countries
in Arab-foreign country collaborations. Arab authors collaborated most
with countries in Europe (24.2 %), followed by countries in the
Asia-Pacific region (9.8 %). Conclusion: Scientific
research output in the ICM field in the Arab world region is
increasing. Most of publications from Arab world in ICM filed were
driven by societal use of medicinal plants and herbs. Search for new
therapies from available low cost medicinal plants in Arab world has
motivated many researchers in academia and pharmaceutical industry.
Further investigation is required to support these findings in a wider
journal as well as to improve research output in the field of ICM from
Arab world region by investing in more national and international
collaborative research project.