Sharma Ripudaman, Gupta Tarun, Haidery Tariq H, Sinha Siddhartha, Kumar Arvind
Orthopaedics, GS Medical College and Hospital, New Delhi, IND.
Surgery, Hamdard Institute of Medical Sciences and Research, New Delhi, IND.
Cureus. 2022 Dec 30;14(12):e33121. doi: 10.7759/cureus.33121. eCollection 2022 Dec.
There has been emerging evidence supporting the mini-clinical evaluation exercise (mini-CEX) in various clinical specialties and settings. However, we need more clarity regarding the applicability of mini-CEX as an optimal assessment tool. Consequently, it has not been implemented on a wider scale, and several clinical specialties are yet to explore the benefits of mini-CEX. Therefore, we conducted a bibliometric analysis to investigate the publication trends of mini-CEX. We searched the Web of Science database for mini-CEX-related original and review articles. The search results were analyzed for year-wise contribution, citation trends, contributing journals, contributing institutions, countries, authors, distribution of original/review articles, retrospective/prospective/laboratory/other types of studies, specialties covered, nature of medical education (undergraduate vs. specialty trainees), and clinical settings involved in the studies (single/multiple). A total of 59 eligible articles (53 original and six review articles) were published between 1995 and 2022 in 35 different journals. The mean citations per year were 65.96 per year, and the mean citations per article per year were 2.34 citations per article per year. The articles published in and were the highest in number. In total, 97 institutes contributed to the mini-CEX-related research, mostly from the University of Bern, Switzerland. There were 238 contributing authors, with Norcini JJ contributing the most number of articles. The remaining articles were 15 retrospective studies, one developmental study, six review articles, and three laboratory-based studies. The 50 non-laboratory studies involved students/trainees in medical and allied fields. Medicine was the most frequently covered specialty. The participants were mostly specialty trainees, followed by undergraduate medical students. Multiple settings were used in 38% of the reviewed studies and single in 16%. The published articles have reduced impact and growth, as evidenced by low annual growth rates and citation trends. However, the available evidence was of reasonable quality considering the contribution from mostly prospective studies. Furthermore, it suggests considerable potential for further investigating the role of mini-CEX in clinical teaching.
越来越多的证据支持在各种临床专业和环境中开展迷你临床评估演练（mini-CEX）。然而，关于mini-CEX作为一种最佳评估工具的适用性，我们还需要更清晰的认识。因此，它尚未得到更广泛的应用，一些临床专业仍有待探索mini-CEX的益处。为此，我们进行了一项文献计量分析，以调查mini-CEX的发表趋势。我们在科学网数据库中搜索了与mini-CEX相关的原创和综述文章。对搜索结果进行了逐年贡献、引用趋势、贡献期刊、贡献机构、国家、作者、原创/综述文章分布、回顾性/前瞻性/实验室/其他类型研究、涵盖的专业、医学教育性质（本科与专科培训生）以及研究涉及的临床环境（单一/多个）等方面的分析。1995年至2022年期间，共有59篇符合条件的文章（53篇原创文章和6篇综述文章）发表在35种不同的期刊上。每年的平均引用次数为65.96次，每篇文章每年的平均引用次数为2.34次。发表文章数量最多的年份是[具体年份1]和[具体年份2]。共有97个机构参与了与mini-CEX相关的研究，其中大部分来自瑞士伯尔尼大学。有238位贡献作者，Norcini JJ发表的文章数量最多。其余文章包括15项回顾性研究、1项发展性研究、6篇综述文章和3项基于实验室研究。50项非实验室研究涉及医学及相关领域的学生/培训生。医学是最常涉及的专业。参与者大多是专科培训生，其次是本科医学生。38%的综述研究采用了多种环境，16%采用了单一环境。发表文章的影响力和增长有所下降，年增长率和引用趋势较低就是证明。然而，考虑到大多来自前瞻性研究的贡献，现有证据质量合理。此外，这表明进一步研究mini-CEX在临床教学中的作用具有相当大的潜力。
