The activity of scientists aims for new knowledge, in medicine particularly about illnesses, their aetiology, diagnosis and, of course, therapy. The success of scientific activity can be measured, for instance, by the quantity and quality of publications, as well as by their effect
[...] Read more.
The activity of scientists aims for new knowledge, in medicine particularly about illnesses, their aetiology, diagnosis and, of course, therapy. The success of scientific activity can be measured, for instance, by the quantity and quality of publications, as well as by their effect on specialised literature, and by their consequences in clinical practice. The main objective of this study was to establish an overview of the productivity and the success of cardiological research in Switzerland by analysing its publication output. All members of the Swiss Society of Cardiology and, for comparison, of the Swiss Society for Oncology were included in this study. All publications dating from 1986 to 2000 by these authors were recorded, including their impact factor and citation index. In both cardiology and oncology, the number of publications has steadily increased over the years. The highest number of publications in both fields originated from the germanspeaking part of Switzerland, followed by the french-speaking region. Throughout, more articles were published on cardiological themes, the exception being the italian-speaking part of Switzerland, which produced more papers regarding oncological themes than cardiological ones. The comparison of universities showed Zurich publishing the most in cardiology, followed by Berne, Lausanne, Geneva and Basel, while in oncology the leading university in terms of number of publications was Berne, followed by Basel, Zurich, Geneva and Lausanne. The average impact factor of a publication in cardiology was 4.1, slightly higher than in oncology (3.9). On average however, oncological publications were cited more often (13.4 vs. 12.9;
p ≤ 0.001). The highest citation count of a single publication was 1855 in cardiology, 437 in oncology. 35.7% of publications in cardiology and 30.3% in oncology were never cited. The number of total citations for an individual scientist ranged from 0 to 14,642 in cardiology, and from 0 to 4698 in oncology. The analysis of scientific productivity of two comparable fields of research in Switzerland, and the regional and individual differences shown, might be of value for future evaluations of scientists, groups and institutions and, as a consequence, be taken into consideration for the allocation of funds and resources.
Full article
