Assessment of the Academic Productivity of Plastic Surgeons in Saudi Arabia Using the .

UNLABELLED

(or ) is a bibliometric measure calculated for researchers based on number of publications and their citations. This study examined the of board-certified plastic surgeons in Saudi Arabia and the different factors that may influence it.

METHOD

In this cross-sectional study, an electronic questionnaire was sent to 156 board-certified plastic surgeons practicing in Saudi Arabia. Using their names, we conducted an online search on Scopus, Semantic scholar, and Google scholar to calculate their . Bivariate and multiple regression analyses were conducted to determine the relationship of those factors with the index.

RESULTS

A total of 84 surgeons participated in this study, of whom 83.3% were men. Our sample scored a mean index of 1.7 and published a mean of 5 articles. More publications and a higher academic rank predicted a higher , ( = 0.79, < 0.001) and ( = 0.14, 0.017), respectively. On the other end of the spectrum, the country of residency training ( 0.33), the year of training completion ( 0.95), attaining fellowship training ( 0.95), the number of fellowships ( 0.20), interest in research ( 0.74), working in an academic hospital ( 0.44), or attaining a higher degree ( 0.61) were not significant independent predictors of the index.

CONCLUSIONS

More publications and a higher rank predicted increased academic productivity among the plastic surgeons in Saudi Arabia. Despite its limitations, is a useful measure that can be considered in promotions and applications to prestigious plastic surgery centers in adjunct to other factors.