Article type
Year
Abstract
Background: Appropriate training and the availability of key resources play a pivotal role in producing a systematic review. Over the past 10 years, the Ministry of Health and Medical Education in Iran has provided access to research databases and journals and has conducted several workshops on how to write systematic reviews for researchers in medical universities.
Objectives: This study aimed to identify the systematic reviews/meta-analysis published by Iranian biomedical researchers, establish the overall trend and describe characteristics of such publications.
Methods: A sensitive search strategy was designed based on authors’ affiliation and the key words 'systematic AND review' or 'meta analysis'. The citation databases of Scopus and Web of Science were searched from 1990 to March 2015. We also searched for the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews as a source of publication. We identified systematic review/meta-analysis that affiliated by at least one author from Iran. Two independent reviewers screened and evaluated retrieved records to select relevant studies. We excluded study protocols.
Results: Our search resulted in the retrieval of 2596 records (1735 after removing duplicates), of which 912 records (850 papers and 62 conference proceedings) were judged to be relevant. The number of papers increased from one in 1998 to 219 in 2014. The majority of papers were published in English (98%) and in non-Iranian journals (71%) including 43 papers in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. Out of 850 papers, 155 (18.2%) were conducted to investigate a national issue. The various domains of reviews were detected, and included treatment/prevention (37.2%), epidemiology and prevalence (14.9%), risk/harm assessment (10.2%), prognostic (9.9%), policy making (7.7%), public health (7.6%), diagnostic (6.1%) and gene disease association (4.8%).
Conclusions: This study introduces the fast growth of scientific communications of Iranian biomedical researchers in developing systematic reviews. Further study on the quality assessment of these publications is warranted to identify potential gaps and educational demands for Iranian researchers.
Objectives: This study aimed to identify the systematic reviews/meta-analysis published by Iranian biomedical researchers, establish the overall trend and describe characteristics of such publications.
Methods: A sensitive search strategy was designed based on authors’ affiliation and the key words 'systematic AND review' or 'meta analysis'. The citation databases of Scopus and Web of Science were searched from 1990 to March 2015. We also searched for the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews as a source of publication. We identified systematic review/meta-analysis that affiliated by at least one author from Iran. Two independent reviewers screened and evaluated retrieved records to select relevant studies. We excluded study protocols.
Results: Our search resulted in the retrieval of 2596 records (1735 after removing duplicates), of which 912 records (850 papers and 62 conference proceedings) were judged to be relevant. The number of papers increased from one in 1998 to 219 in 2014. The majority of papers were published in English (98%) and in non-Iranian journals (71%) including 43 papers in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. Out of 850 papers, 155 (18.2%) were conducted to investigate a national issue. The various domains of reviews were detected, and included treatment/prevention (37.2%), epidemiology and prevalence (14.9%), risk/harm assessment (10.2%), prognostic (9.9%), policy making (7.7%), public health (7.6%), diagnostic (6.1%) and gene disease association (4.8%).
Conclusions: This study introduces the fast growth of scientific communications of Iranian biomedical researchers in developing systematic reviews. Further study on the quality assessment of these publications is warranted to identify potential gaps and educational demands for Iranian researchers.