How scientific are we in the field of cardiology?

OBJECTIVE
The current study investigated the contribution of the dissertations produced in the field of cardiology to the scientific literature and the factors affecting the publication process.


METHODS
The study included 1049 cardiology dissertations (CDs) between January 2010 and December 2017 using the database of the national thesis centre. The titles (English and Turkish), abstracts, and author names of CDs were searched in Google Academic, TR Directory, and PubMED Central databases. Their publication rates were investigated. In addition, the subject of the CDs, the type of research, the type of institution, the academic title of the CD advisors, the duration of publication, the index of the published journals, the quartile ranking of the Science Citation Index (SCI), and Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-E) journals were examined.


RESULTS
A total of 1049 CDs were reviewed. Of these CDs, 42.7% (n=448) were published in a journal. The published CDs' male and female authors were 43.5% and 40.1%, respectively. The CDs were published at the highest rate after the 60th month. %63.4 (n=284) of the CDs published were in journals within the scope of SCI and SCI-E. There was no statistically significant difference between the titles of CD advisors and the quartile ranking of SCI and SCI-E journals (p=0.072).


CONCLUSION
There were difficulties in transforming into a publication of dissertations in the field of cardiology to gain an academic identity. Incentives should be created to increase the desire and motivation of the students.