Representation of South Asian countries in five high-impact anesthesia journals

Abstract

Context:The South Asian region is comprised of eight countries, i.e., Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Nepal, and Maldives. There is dearth of literature documenting anesthesia research in this region.Aim:The aim of this audit was to look at research productivity in the region by examining the volume and the type of anesthesia publication in five high-index anesthesia journals.Settings and Design:The study design was a survey of literature in the top five high-impact anesthesiology journals carried out at a tertiary care hospital.Materials and Methods:The journal citation report 2016 was accessed to identify the top five anesthesia journals based on their impact factor. We identified articles published in these journals between January 2000 and December 2015.Statistical Analysis:Microsoft Excel 2003 worksheet was used for data collection from extracted articles.Results:The highest number of publications came from India (n = 487) 95.9%; 58.5% of these were correspondence, 21% were original articles, 12.8% were case reports and case series, 1.2% reviews, and 1% editorials. Fourteen articles were published from Pakistan, with 1.2% original articles, 0.8% letter to editor, 0.6% audits, and 0.2% case reports. Nepal and Sri Lanka contributed seven publications. There were no publications in these journals from authors from Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Bhutan, and Maldives in the reviewed journals. The highest number of publications was equally distributed between two journals, i.e., “Anesthesia and Analgesia” (29.5%) and “Anesthesia” (28.9%).Conclusion:We found that scientific contributions from the South Asian region in terms of original anesthesiology research in five high index anesthesiology journals was suboptimal and has not shown an increasing trend over the last 16 years.

Online academic community in the Asia‐Pacific countries: The paragon of a metamorphic world

“…36,37 Moreover, South-Asian journals have a poor social media presence on a global scale, reducing the visibility of their content causing poor publication standards and indexing. 38 This puts the students of the Asia-Pacific region at an inherent disadvantage due to their under-representation on a global scale.…”

“…Additionally, scholars from the Asia‐Pacific region have fewer international publications and presence as compared to the developed nations, although these numbers are consistently increasing 36,37 . Moreover, South‐Asian journals have a poor social media presence on a global scale, reducing the visibility of their content causing poor publication standards and indexing 38 . This puts the students of the Asia‐Pacific region at an inherent disadvantage due to their under‐representation on a global scale.…”