Evaluation of 10-year Citations to Cardiovascular Publications Originating from Turkey at the Turn of the Century: Pessimism Unjustified

Citations to publications in adult and pediatric cardiology and cardiac surgery that originated from Turkey's medical institutions in the 10-year period comprising 1994 through 2003 were assessed. The Cited reference search service of the Web of Science was evaluated in regard to 310 Turkish authors as candidates for citations. Care was taken that all citations of the searched author were included though none of the preceding period, nor of a potentially different author with similar name and initials. The citation was credited to the primary author, but equal credit was given for papers from more than one field or more than one country. A total of 3650 citations were received in the 10-year period including 1880 in adult cardiology, 1220 in cardiac surgery and 550 in pediatric cardiology - which was estimated to constitute a world share of 1.2 per mille. The latter share was 5 fold that of two decades ago. Articles published in journals covered only by the CD edition of the SCI during 1994-2001 received an annual average of 0.88 citation per article (not per cited article). Eighty % of articles succeeded in receiving one or more citations during the subsequent 5-year period. Potential citations rose 3-4 fold in the course of the studied period. The names of 100 primary authors who obtained ?10 citations and the references of 29 articles with ?14 citations were herein listed. It was concluded that the impact of publications in cardiovascular medicine originating from Turkey continued to grow at a fast pace and the suspicion held in some circles that the impact of scientific research was poor was unfounded. Still, it was considered that manuscripts be submitted to periodicals with a higher impact factor with the purpose of further augmenting the impact. Elicited findings might be useful in decisions for promotion by academic committees. (Türk Kardiyol Dern Arş 2004; 32: 180-187)