Internationalisation of general practice journals: a bibliometric analysis of the Science Citation Index database
Hsin Ma
A , Bo-Ren Cheng A , An-Hui Chang C , Hsiao-Ting Chang A B , Ming-Hwai Lin A B , Tzeng-Ji Chen A B D and Shinn-Jang Hwang A B
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A Department of Family Medicine, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taipei 11217, Taiwan.
B School of Medicine, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taipei 11221, Taiwan
C Department of Family Medicine, Taiwan Adventist Hospital, Taipei 10556, Taiwan.
D Corresponding author. Email: tjchen@vghtpe.gov.tw
Australian Journal of Primary Health 28(1) 76-81 https://doi.org/10.1071/PY21069
Submitted: 20 March 2021 Accepted: 1 October 2021 Published: 14 December 2021
Journal Compilation © La Trobe University 2022 Open Access CC BY-NC-ND
Abstract
Research plays a crucial role in the development of primary health care. Researchers in other specialities have studied the internationalisation of their journals, but no such study has been conducted for general practice. The aim of this study was to analyse the volume of publication and internationalisation of general practice journals indexed in the Science Citation Index (SCI) database in 2019. Of the total 1573 articles and reviews in 19 journals indexed under the subject category of ‘primary health care’ in the SCI database, 86.4% (n = 1359) were published in four English-speaking countries (32.8% in seven US journals, 34.8% in five UK journals, 12.5% in two Australian journals and 6.4% in one Canadian journal) and 40.6% (n = 639) were authored or coauthored by authors from a country other than that in which the journal was published. There was a significant (P < 0.05) relationship between the country of publication and the degree of internationalisation of the journal. The degree of internationalisation of general practice journals varied from 94.2% for family practice to 2.0% for primary care. There are wide disparities in internationalisation among different countries and general practice journals. There is much room for improvement in the internationalisation of general practice journals in the SCI database.
Keywords: bibliometrics, general practice, primary health care, publishing, research.
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