Nigerian Quarterly Journal of Hospital Medicine (2000-2010): A Bibliometric Study.

Abstract

Background: Information are on daily basis generated, packaged in various forms or formats and eventually delivered to the information consumers for the utility sake. To know the trends of the volume of human intellectual activities, its growth, its structure, and the degree of interdisciplinary relationships called for a bibliometric study in Nigerian Quarterly Journal of Hospital Medicine 2000- 2010. Therefore this research focused on the direction of publication of articles in Nigerian Quarterly Journal of Hospital Medicine (NQJHM) for a period of time.
Objective: The essence of research work is to determine the quantum volume of research output, yearly and quarterly distributions of articles, distribution of references cited, authorship and geographical distributions and as well as subject distributions.
Methods: Information was transcribed on cataloguing cards for the generation of databank. Subject analysis was done by using Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) 2010 edition and Bradford's mathematical model used to analyse the data collected for this study.
Results: The findings showed that a total number of 450 articles were produced and year 2000 recorded the highest number with 76 (16.8%) articles. The total number of reference cited between 2000-2010 stood at 8409. References cited in 2004 were the highest with 1254 (15%) whilst 2002 recorded the least citations. Furthermore, in the authorship distribution, two authorship collaborations had 117 (26%) representing the highest. 135 subjects were determined in the study and were ranked in decreasing order of productivity. The top thirteen of subjects ranked were: dentistry (41); pharmaceutical sciences (26); malaria (18); materia medica (18); acquired immunodeficiency syndrome/human immune virus(17); animal experimentation (14); biochemistry (11); diabetes Mellitus (11); others include physiotherapy (10); paediatrics (8); nutrition (8); surgery (8); and radiology/radiation (8). The rank order of geographical distribution was displayed and Lagos State pooled 331 (73.5%) of articles and followed by Oyo State with 20 (4.4.%) articles.
Conclusion: Adoption of this type of tool helps in analyzing journal publications for a period of time. It is of course, a good strategy to know the direction of publication of a journal, its strengths and weaknesses and unravels high concentration area and the low concentration areas as well.

Keywords: Bibliometric, Informetric, Research Productivity, NQJHM, Bradford's Statistics.