An evaluation of articles in international peer-reviewed publications in Turkish family medicine.

BACKGROUND

Scientific publication in Turkish family medicine (FM) has currently increased and a systematic assessment of the quantity and quality of the published research is the aim of this study.

MATERIAL/METHODS: The data were obtained from the Institute for Scientific Information Citation Databases (SCI, SCI-Expanded, SSCI, and A&HSCI) and the period between 1975-2005 was searched. Key words such as "family practice", "family medicine", "primary care", "primary medical care", and "Turkey" were used and publications were classified according to the type of research, the number of authors, first authorship, the number of citations, and address. The classification was performed by two investigators and the inter-rater-reliability was found to be Cramer's V=0.79 (p<0.05).

RESULTS

One hundred five publications were found. Publications were evident since the year 1991 and showed an increase with the year 2001. The median number of authors of the publications was five (range 1-8), and family physicians were generally the second authors (range: 1-7). The predominant types of publication was research articles (n=72, 69%), and the leading types of research were surveys (n=29, 28%) and case-control studies (n=24, 23%). The median citation number of publications per article was 0.89 (range: 0-13).

CONCLUSIONS

A recent increase in publication in international peer-reviewed journals was observed. Mostly research articles were published, but randomized controlled trials were in the minority. More emphasis on developing a research capacity in family medicine might help to optimize research activities in Turkey.