Pakistan
Journal of Ophthalmology is the official Journal of Ophthalmological Society of Pakistan (OSP) recognized by the Pakistan
Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) under IP/008.
The society’s leaders have endeavored to support programs, which would improve
the knowledge of ophthalmologists to provide better patient care and management
in vitreo-retina, oculoplastics, glaucoma, pediatric ophthalmology, cataract
and refractive surgery1. Bibliometric
study is one of the several methods to calculate the research productivity of a
journal using a combination of mathematical and statistical methods2.
Bibliometric data plays a vibrant role in research efficiency of a
journal connected with a special or specific subject, and an institute in terms
of new ideas, techniques for analyzing scientific research as correct and
relevant to practice3,4.
According to
Scimago Journal & Country Rank (2018), Pakistan stands at 44th position
in all regions and 10th Position in Asiatic Region with 109,760
citable documents. There are 74 journals enrolled in Web of Science (WoS) and
117 enrolled on a link Scimago journal and country rank, related to various
ophthalmic sub-specialties5,6. Scientific writings began with the
two general medical journals; French Journal des Savants and the British
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in the 17th century until
the end of 18th century. Before the end of 20th-century
specialist medical journals were famous, and later the journals which reflected
the sub-specialties of any discipline of health sciences got attention of medical
communities7.
This particular study was conducted to find the characteristics of
publications in Pakistan journal of ophthalmology during the last 24 years.
MATERIAL AND METHODS
The data of articles published in Pakistan Journal of
Ophthalmology (PJO) during the year 1995 – 2018 was downloaded, collected and
tabulated in MS Office (Excel 2010) in the library of College of Applied
Medical Sciences, King Saud bin Abdul Aziz University for Health Sciences
Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Data was collected from June 2018 to April 2019
from the websites of Pakistan Journal of Ophthalmology (PJO) (http://www.pjo.com.pk/), and from Pak Medinet
(http://www.pakmedinet.com/).
The
data was analyzed by dividing the studied period into two parts; a) first 12
years (1995 – 2006) and b) the last 12
years (2007 – 2018) for better understanding. The objectives of the study were; a) to find
the year, volume & issue wise publications, b) to explore the contribution
of authors in publications, c) to discover the gender-wise distribution of the
authors, d) to identify the pattern of authorship. Statistical analysis of the
results was done using Microsoft Excel, version 2010.
RESULTS
There were 2816 authors who
contributed 855 articles, which were published with an average of 35 articles per
volume and 8.9 per issue during the studied period. Maximum number of articles were
published in the year 2014 & 2018 (48 articles in each volume) and minimum number
of articles were published in 1995 and 1997 (20 articles in each volume) as
shown in figure 1. Male
authors were 2378 (84.4%) and female authors were 437 (15.2%) out of 2816 total
authors. The ratio of female authors was significantly increased
as the first author in the last 11 years of publication (figure
2).
Majority
85.8% articles were written by multiple authors in both halves (25.8% and
56.9%). There were 14.1% articles written by solo or single author out of 855
articles. The first half shows that the solo articles were 33.2% higher than
the second half (figure 3). There were only ten female authors who submitted article
as single-author.
Distribution of articles
Year, Volume & Issue-Wise during the years 1995 to 2018 is given in table
1. Table 2 (Distributed in A & B halves) explains the
breakdown of authorship
pattern in the publications during the studied period. The first half shows
that the production of 25.3% articles were as single or solo author as compared
to 7% in the second half. The increased number of publications over the past
years shows constant publication approach and determination of the researchers
and the editorial team of PJO.
DISCUSSION
According to an
Editor of the American Journal of Ophthalmology, there are many hardships faced
by the editors including, irregular behaviors by authors, delayed information
by the authors for submission and rejection by other journals8.
American Journal of Ophthalmology received 1042 full-length original
manuscripts from 53 countries, between October 2009 to September 2010. Majority
of articles (273) were from the United States of America followed by Japan
(141). Among these, 257 (24.6%) were accepted for publication8. An
interesting study was applied on ophthalmic literature published in American
Journal of Ophthalmology and Archives of Ophthalmology from January 2012 to
December 2012 to determine the statistical methods used to evaluate the
participation of an author in research productivity. This study examined 780
peer-reviewed articles and 618 (79.2%) articles were reported to use most of
the statistical methods. Contingency tables, t-tests, and nonparametric tests
were frequently used9.
To assess the contribution of Arab authors in
ophthalmology, a study was designed and conducted in Web of Science (WoS) in
2015. The study found that 216,921 articles were published under the title of
“Ophthalmology” worldwide. It was also revealed that the participation of Arab
countries in researching ophthalmology is 0.96% around the globe. The
contribution of researchers affiliated with Arab countries was constant, with
828 articles. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia had the highest research output followed
by Egypt 461 articles and Tunisia 210 articles. Countries with the highest
collaboration with researchers in the Arab world in ophthalmology research were
USA followed by England and Spain. The most research productive organization in
Arab countries was King Khalid Eye Specialist Hospital with 396 articles
authored or co-authored10. A similar study was initiated on PubMed
(Free) database to know the participation of Indian ophthalmic papers published
from 2001 to 2006 in the peer-reviewed journals in the discipline of ophthalmic
and vision research. Results showed that 2163 articles were published during
the studied period11. In
the previous decade, a study was conducted to analyze the scientific production
published in the field of ophthalmology and visual sciences in Argentina,
Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay from 1995-2004. Study found that 1216
articles were published in this period. This study provides a novel perspective
in this field to maintain quality and quantity in ophthalmology and visual
sciences research 12.
An
analysis was conducted in 2018 on quarterly Pakistan Journal of Pharmaceutical
Sciences (PJPS) from 1998 to 2012. Total 2941 authors contributed 722 articles.
This study revealed that publications were doubled in PJPS after the year 2005.
The percentage of female authors was 32.4%13. Writing scholarly in a
journal is the core component for communicating to a specific audience in the
specialty with other sub-specialties of the subject. A retrospective appraisal
of this journal displayed the robust peer-review system, which helps
researchers to communicate research idea appropriately to its readers. A
similar study was conducted to explore research trends in the ophthalmic
literature published in the top twenty ranked ophthalmology journals from 2009
to 2013 relative to the research productivity of a country14. It
showed that 7,338 articles were published by the USA,
UK, and Europe out of 19338
articles, followed by China, Korea and India as major contributors14.
Additionally, an interesting study unfolds the development in the past decade
and found 100 most cited articles under the title “Ophthalmic epidemiology”
which were published in Ophthalmology
journal and cited 61 to 333 times15.
Simultaneously, an observational study conducted to analyze women’s
participation in original articles and editorials on three ophthalmology
journals, which comprised past ten years as academic publications. The study found
the participation of female researchers was 671 original articles with 89
editorials16. Moreover, a huge study was conducted in ophthalmologic journals
indexed in Web of Science (WoS) from 2008 to 2018 to determine the
representation of female authorship according to first name, under the title “Sex
Disparities in Ophthalmic
Research: A Descriptive Bibliometric Study on Scientific
Authorships”. The data of 248 ophthalmic journals retrieved 87,640 (25.4%)
articles, which were written by 344,433 authors. Overall 120,305 (34.9%) female
participants were calculated17. However, according to one research, the contribution of female scholars is advanced in
dermatological research as compared with other medical disciplines18.
In January 2019, a study was conducted to estimate the number of
publications on nephrology clinical trials published from 1966 to 2017 and
preclinical studies from 1945–2017 in two databases namely; a Cochrane library
and PubMed indexed journals. Study reported that 118 clinical trials and 135
preclinical studies were published in leading journals19. Moreover,
an interesting study figures out that 2,135 peer-reviewed papers were published
from 2009 to 2018 on retinal vein occlusion (RVO) a subspecialty of ophthalmology
from Web of Science Core Collection to identify potential collaborators and
partner institutions20. Lastly, assessing gaps are important
to researchers between the specialty and subspecialty of visual sciences to
categorize the objectives for achieving goals in future. Our study enlightened the encouraging
policies of PJO to publishing, organizational environment and support of
information technologies, which are influential factors in encouraging contributors
in ophthalmic research.
CONCLUSION
This study finds that Pakistan Journal of Ophthalmology (PJO) is published regularly and
over the last 23 years has gained the
confidence of researchers, institutes, and readers.
DISCLAIMER
None to declare.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
None to declare.
FUNDING DISCLOSURE
None to declare.
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