Abstract:

Objective To analyze the situation of scientific and technological papers in the field of tuberculosis published by Chinese scholars from 2015 to 2019. Methods All of 29223 Chinese papers related to tuberculosis were retrieved using SinoMed and the citation related information of published papers was searched using CNKI; 3963 English papers related to tuberculosis were retrieved using PubMedPlus and the citation related information of published papers was searched using Jinan Quanfang Local PubMed retrieval system; retrieval time was from 2015 to 2019. The number of retrieved papers, the distribution of published journals, the organizations and regions of the first author, and the citation frequency were statistically analyzed. Results From 2015 to 2019, the total number of papers related to tuberculosis published by Chinese scholars in Chinese journals were 29223, which were 7155 (24.48%) in 2015, 6318 (21.62%) in 2016, 5499 (18.82%) in 2017, 5176 (17.71%) in 2018, and 5075 (17.37%) in 2019 respectively, showing a downward trend by year, with an average annual decline rate of 8.23%. The total number of papers published in English journals were 3963, with 710 (17.92%), 697 (17.59%), 775 (19.56%), 810 (20.44%), and 971 (24.50%) in each year, showing an increasing trend with an average annual growth rate of 8.14%. The proportion of papers published by Chinese authors in English journals (10.02% (710/7083), 9.62% (697/7243), 10.80% (775/7173), 11.39% (810/7112), 12.73% (971/7628)) also showed an increasing trend year by year; only 2 of the top 10 Chinese journals were sci-tech core journals, and among them, Chinese Journal of Antituberculosis published the largest number of papers (1260), accounting for 4.31% (1260/29223) of all papers published in Chinese journals. All the top 10 English journals were SCI journals. More first authors in Chinese journal were from tuberculosis specialized hospitals (top10: 8/10), and the institutions were located in Guangdong, Beijing, and Jiangsu (22.23%, 6495/29223). However, those with more articles published in English journals were general hospitals and research institutions (top10:8/10), while the institutions were located in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong (60.64%, 2403/3936), and the imbalance of regional distribution was more obvious compared with the papers published in Chinese journals (χ²=2621.70,P<0.01). The number of papers published by Beijing Chest hospital, Capital Medical University ranked first in both Chinese and English journals (801 and 203, respectively). The citation rate of papers published in Chinese journals was 68.11% (19903/29223), and total citation frequency was 78179. However, only 11 papers were cited more than 30 times, compared with 179 papers in English journals. Conclusion From 2015 to 2019, a large number of papers had been published in the field of tuberculosis by Chinese scholars, but the number of papers published in Chinese journals showed a downward trend year by year; at the same time, the distribution of scientific research output in different regions and institutions was obviously unbalanced, and the citation frequency of papers in Chinese journals was low.

Key words: Bibliometrics, Journal article, Tuberculosis, Data interpretation,statistical