Research Group on Palliative Care and Health-Related Quality of Life (GPQual), Barretos Cancer Hospital, Barretos, São Paulo, Brazil.
Oncology Graduate Program, Barretos Cancer Hospital, Barretos, São Paulo, Brazil.
Ann Glob Health. 2021 Mar 31;87(1):32. doi: 10.5334/aogh.3158.
Progress in palliative care (PC) requires scientific advances which could potentially be catalyzed by international research collaboration (IRC). It is currently not known how often IRC occurs with PC investigators in South America.
To evaluate the percentage of South America journal articles on PC involving IRCs and the impact of these collaborations on the scientific potential the studies and on their citations.
This was a bibliometric analysis of studies published between January 1, 1998, and December 31, 2017. A search of Pubmed, Embase, Lilacs, and Web of Science (WOS) was performed using the terms "palliative care," "hospice care," "hospices" and "terminal care," combined with the name of South America countries. The scientific potential was assessed by analyzing study design, characteristics of the journal and funding. IRCs were further subdivided in internal (within South America countries) and external (with countries outside South America).
Of the 641 articles, 117 (18.2%) involved IRCs (internal: 18, 2.8%; external: 110, 17.2%). Articles with IRCs had higher median two-year citations in WOS (2 vs. 1, p < 0.001), Scopus (3 vs. 1, p < 0.001) and Google Scholar (4.5 vs. 2, p < 0.001) compared to articles without IRC. Moreover, they were more often funded (40.7% vs. 9.7%, p < 0.001), published in Pubmed-indexed (76.1% vs. 41.6%; p < 0.001) and in WOS-indexed (70.1% vs. 29.6%; p < 0.001) journals, and with study designs most often classified as clinical trial (5.1% vs. 1.0%; p = 0.002) and cohort (10.3% vs. 2.9%; p < 0.001) compared to articles without IRC.
Studies with international research collaborations, both internal and external to South America, are more frequently cited and have characteristics with greater scientific potential than do studies without international collaborations.
姑息治疗（PC）的进展需要科学进步，而国际研究合作（IRC）可能会推动这一进步。目前尚不清楚在南美洲，PC 研究人员之间有多少次 IRC 合作。
评估南美洲 PC 期刊文章中涉及 IRC 的比例，以及这些合作对研究的科学潜力及其引用的影响。
这是一项 1998 年 1 月 1 日至 2017 年 12 月 31 日期间发表的研究的文献计量分析。在 Pubmed、Embase、Lilacs 和 Web of Science（WOS）中使用了“姑息治疗”、“临终关怀”、“临终关怀机构”和“临终关怀”等术语，并结合了南美洲国家的名称进行了搜索。通过分析研究设计、期刊特征和资金情况来评估科学潜力。IRC 进一步细分为内部（在南美洲国家内）和外部（与南美洲以外的国家）。
在 641 篇文章中，有 117 篇（18.2%）涉及 IRC（内部：18 篇，2.8%；外部：110 篇，17.2%）。与没有 IRC 的文章相比，有 IRC 的文章在 WOS（2 比 1，p < 0.001）、Scopus（3 比 1，p < 0.001）和 Google Scholar（4.5 比 2，p < 0.001）中的中位两年引用量更高。此外，它们更有可能获得资金（40.7%比 9.7%，p < 0.001），发表在 Pubmed 索引（76.1%比 41.6%；p < 0.001）和 WOS 索引（70.1%比 29.6%；p < 0.001）期刊上，并且研究设计大多归类为临床试验（5.1%比 1.0%；p = 0.002）和队列研究（10.3%比 2.9%；p < 0.001），而没有 IRC 的文章则较少。
与没有国际合作的研究相比，南美洲内外的国际研究合作（IRC）的研究更常被引用，且具有更大的科学潜力。
