Scientific publication in obstetrics and gynecology from Mainland China and other top-ranking countries: A 10-year survey of the literature.

AIM

To evaluate the output of scientific publications in obstetrics and gynecology journals from Mainland China and six other countries, to compare the difference of research situation between Mainland China and the developed countries in order to measure the trend of number of publication in the field of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

METHODS

Information on article amounts, impact factors (IF), citation and publication in high-impact obstetrics and gynecology journals by seven top-ranking countries between January 1, 2007 and August 31, 2017, was extracted from Web of Science databases.

RESULTS

A total of 137 661 articles were published between 2007 and 2017 in the 98 obstetrics and gynecology journals. The cumulative IF and citations of articles from USA were the highest. The highest average citation was France and Mainland China ranked fourth. There were 52 631 papers published in the top 10 obstetrics and gynecology journals and the USA accounted for the majority of these papers (33 978, 64.6%), followed by England (8347, 15.9%). Articles from the USA were most often published in American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology (10658) and those from Mainland China were mostly published in Fertility and Sterility (809).

CONCLUSION

The USA published the most articles having high IF, making the greatest contribution to the field of obstetrics and gynecology. Although the number of scientific publications from Mainland China has rapidly increased from 2007 to 2017, the quality of these publications has not been as satisfactory. It implys that Chinese current academic evaluation system should pay special attention to the quality of academic papers, instead of the number of papers published by scientists.