Bibliometric Analysis of Parasitological Research in Iran and Turkey: A Comparative Study

BACKGROUND This study was designed to assess and compare the quantity and quality of Iranian and Turkish researchers working in the field of Parasitology from bibliometric point of view. METHODS To assess the contributions and achievements of the Iranian and Turkish parasitologists, bibliometric analysis was carried out based on the citation data retrieved from Web of Science. RESULTS The absolute productivity of Turkish and Iranian parasitologists' papers has almost tripled for Turkey, from 12 papers in 2002 to 36 papers in 2011, and decuple for Iran, from 10 papers to 123 from 2002 to 2010. The average number of citation per article is about 5.8 and 4 for Turkish and Iranian parasitologists' papers, respectively. The "Veterinary Parasitology" journal was the most cited journal in both countries. The majority (more than 90%) of cited items was foreign journal articles and one half of all references in journals articles dated 11 and 12 years while one half of cited books was dated within 14 to16 years for Turkish and Iranian papers, respectively. CONCLUSION Based on observed data and applied model, it is anticipated that the total number of Iranian and Turkish parasitologists' publications in Web of Science will exceed of 2512 and 240 articles per annum for Iranian and Turkish in 2020, respectively.