Publication trends of a biomedical journal from India.

ABSTRACT

Background: The details about the research productivity of the biomedical journals published from India is lacking. We analyzed the publishing trends and the research productivity of the Journal of the Association of Physicians of India (JAPI). Materials and Methods: This was a bibliometric analysis of a biomedical journal. The data was obtained from the website of JAPI about the publications between 2000 and 2011. The articles were analyzed for the type (original article, case reports, correspondence, pictorial image, reviews, editorials, philately and miscellaneous), subspecialty (endocrinology, cardiology, etc), and place of the research work (Mumbai, Delhi, etc). Descriptive statistics giving data in numbers and percentages were used. Results: JAPI published 2977 articles over last 12 years (12 volumes and 134 issues). Case reports (29.5%), original articles (22.6%), and correspondence (20.5%) constitute 3/4 of the published articles. JAPI showed a gradual declining trend of published articles per issue (29.5 in 2000 to 17 in 2011). The data about 1798 research articles was analyzed further. Most of the articles belong to the Endocrinology, neurology, and infectious diseases. Mumbai is the leader over past 12 years in contributing toward the articles followed by other three metros. Conclusion: JAPI showed a declining trend in the number of published articles over last decade. Metro cities contributed the maximum research articles and the subspecialty coverage skewed in favor of Endocrinology.