Scientific output of emergency and urgency professionals in Spain during the 2015-2019 5-year period vs the previous 5 years (2010-2014).

OBJECTIVE

To analyze the scientific output of professionals working in emergency medicine in Spain during the 2015-2019 vs the previous 5 years (2010-2014).

METHODS

We included documents authored by professionals affiliated with emergency and urgency medicine in a Spanish center, indexed in the Science Citation Index (SCI)-Expanded, excluding conference communications. These documents were analyzed by publication year, authors (number, affiliation, and order of authorship), journal, document type, and research areas. Some output markers were analyzed by autonomous community and hospital based on the affiliation of the lead author from the emergency settins.

RESULTS

During the 2015-2019 5-year period, a total of 1,906 documents were published (64% original articles, 33% more vs 2010-2014), with a higher proportion of articles being published in Spanish (55%) vs English (45%). However, there was a significant increase in English articles vs the previous period (32%, p .001). Although most research activity came from hospital emergency departments (85%), the production from emergency medical services (EMS) professionals went up from 8.7% to 11.5%; p .001. First authorship went down from 67% to 50%; p .001, while university affiliation went up from 16% to 33%, p .001, as well as collaborative articles with other hospital and EDs, and other hospitals, including international collaborations (20% of international documents) (p .001 forall comparisons). Research areas with the most documents being published were cardiovascular (17.6%), infectious diseases (11.9%), pediatrics (10.7%), toxicology/pharmacology (8.0%), neurology (5.5%), and pulmonology (5.2%). Catalonia produced the most documents (510; 26.9%), followed by Madrid (419; 22.1%) and Andalusia (281; 14.8%). The regions with the largest relative increase in their share of Spanish output vs the previous 5-year period were Murcia (+71%), the Balearic Islands (+60%), Madrid (+40%), Castile-León (+37%), the Basque Country (+28%), and Asturias (+27%). Hospital Clínic led hospital production (199 out of 1,612 documents; 12%) while the Andalusian EMS led the out-of-hospital production (41 out of 219; 19%).

CONCLUSIONS

The scientific oyutput of emergency professionals in Spain grew steadily during the 2015-2019 period, with significant positive changes in many qualitative aspects of this production vs the previous 5 years. Some significant changes were also detected regarding the relative weight of certain centers and autonomous communities in this production.