Osteoporosis researches in Endocrinology & Metabolism Research Institute (EMRI) of Tehran University of Medical Sciences; a Scientometrics study

Scientometric study of academic publications on herbal medicines in Endocrinology & Metabolism Research Institute (EMRI) of Tehran University of Medical Sciences

Background

After the emphasis of the World Health Organization (WHO) on herbal medicines as the primary source for the care and treatment of some diseases, scientific publications increased in this regard. A significant body of basic and clinical researches in the field of herbal medicines are conducted in Endocrinology and Metabolism Research Institute (EMRI). This scientometric study is investigated to assess the global scientific production of EMRI in field of herbal medicines and endocrine disorders.

Methods

Some of our search terms were "herbal medicine", "Chinese medicine", "traditional medicine", "endocrine", "metabolism", and "emri" from Scopus, Web of Science (WOS), and PubMed databases until June 20, 2020. Extracted data including first author, journal name, publication year, type of paper and number of citations were analyzed using analysis tools provided by Scopus, WOS databases, and SPSS version 15.

Results

Overall, 126 studies affiliated to EMRI were published on this topic. The number of these publications showed a non-significant increasing time trend. Majority of the published papers were original articles (>60%) and the two top subject areas were medicine and drug. The documents were cited totally 2900, and 2377 times with an average citation/article 29.59, and 24.76 in Scopus and WOS, respectively. The h-index of documents were 28 and 25, in Scopus and WOS, respectively. The highest cited article was a systematic review study in field of diabetes, and top source was "Daru Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences". Top author was affiliated to EMRI, followed by an author from pharmaceutical reserachers as national co-authorship. The highest international co-authorship was with the US.

Conclusions

A promising scientific productivity is shown in the studied field. However, the number of publications is insufficient, and more evidence-based publications are required on this topic.

Mind the osteoporosis care gap with timely diagnosis: an executive summary of nationwide osteoporosis Campaigns 2019-2021

Background

The World Osteoporosis Day inaugurate on October 20 every year by the International Osteoporosis Foundation to initiate bone health and osteoporosis as a global health agenda for policymakers, health care providers, and the public. The reported the campaigns activities in three years 2019, 2020, and 2021. The aim of this campaigns was to promote the osteoporosis awareness to close osteoporosis care and data gaps.

Methods

World Osteoporosis Day campaigns were held during three consecutive years 2019-2021 through "structuring" and "implantation" phases. The slogan of "early detection and timely diagnosis of osteoporosis" was followed in different public awareness and healthcare professional educational events. Also, a short survey regarding the knowledge of women aged ≥ 50 years of osteoporosis was used in campaigns to gather data for future planning. These nationwide campaigns was supported by the Osteoporosis Research Center in collaboration with the non-communicable diseases management office of Iran's Ministry of Health.

Results

All activities stablished to close the "data" and "awareness" gap in osteoporosis care. 1972, 1881, and 2538 women aged ≥ 50 were participated in the world osteoporosis campaigns and educated in 2019, 2020, and 2021, respectively. More than thousands of online and published educational materials were provided and disseminated in group and face-to-face and virtual education via celebration meetings in primary healthcare facilities, parks and shopping malls. The wide-ranging health slogans and massages was distributed by way of SMS, press conferences on television, radio, and other social media platforms. In addition, the in-person and virtual events such as up-date osteoporosis symposiums, national osteoporosis research network meetings, osteoporosis essential courses, and subspecialty one-day seminars provided knowledge for health care teams and policy makers.

Conclusion

Closing the osteoporosis treatment gap was approached by nationwide campaigns to make an appropriate intervention to emphasize early diagnosis and awareness of osteoporosis to close the care gap.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40200-023-01257-7.

Contribution of Iranian researchers in Alzheimer's disease research: A 10 years scientometric analysis

Background

Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of dementia and is a rising issue for global health. Iran is struggling with a growing number of the elderly population and also a decrease in fertility rate. The goal of this study was to review and evaluate Alzheimer's disease publications by Iranian researchers.

Methods

We searched for Alzheimer and all its related keywords in the Web of Science to find related documents published by Iranian researchers from 2010 until 2019. Bibliometric parameters at the level of documents, authors, and organizations were assessed. The co-authorship matrix was computed using Bibexcel, and visualizations were performed by VOSviewer.

Results

Totally, 1042 documents from 4949 researchers (8.6 authors per document) were retrieved from Web of Science. Original articles (77.06%) and reviews (16.21%) were the most common document types for Iranian publications and also one article was retracted. As results, the average citation per document was 20.68. Iranian researchers mainly collaborated with researchers from the United States, Italy, Australia, and Canada, respectively. The co-occurrence networks for keywords represented five publication clusters in the collection. The largest cluster was related to studies on oxidative stress in Alzheimer's Disease, followed by in-vivo studies in the field of brain neurons destruction.

Conclusion

We found that Iranian researchers made significant impacts in the field of Alzheimer's disease and covered a wide range of related areas over the last 10 years.