Keywords
Bibliometric study, India, Physiotherapy, Scientific output
This article is included in the Research on Research, Policy & Culture gateway.
Bibliometric study, India, Physiotherapy, Scientific output
In response to the reviewers' comments, the previously published version of this article was revised with appropriate responses. The new version of this article includes the revised abstract, manuscript text, tables, figures, data link, and references. The previously submitted tables and figures are updated with new data since one correction article was removed. Additionally, the three new tables, such as the collaboration patterns of articles, the top 10 highly cited papers of Indian physiotherapists, and the top 20 keywords are provided. Moreover, two new figures depicting the information about the top 10 collaborating countries and the top 10 authors collaboration are added using VOSviewer. A new heading "Limitations and Recommendations" has been added to describe the limitations and further recommendations of this study. All tables and figures are provided in the revised link (Version 2) of Open Science Framework in the same order as they appear in Version 2 of the manuscript. Also, seven additional supporting literature is added to strengthen the findings and are listed in the reference section. English language editing has already been carried out to improve the clarity of the readers.
See the authors' detailed response to the review by Aamir Raoof Memon
See the authors' detailed response to the review by Gopal Nambi
The scientific output of a profession is recognized by the frequency of publications, which are published in peer-reviewed journals and indexed in bibliographic databases1–3. In physiotherapy, this scientific output is utilized to enhance existing knowledge and develop guidelines for highly effective clinical practice4. Accordingly, the analysis of scientific output allows the definition of baseline indicators in knowledge and clinical practice in physiotherapy5,6. Various studies investigated the scientific output of physiotherapists across the globe6–14. Among these studies, several utilized electronic searches6,7,9–11,13,14, whereas others were limited to document reviews8,12. Concerning the Indian context, only two studies have been performed to reveal the research productivity of Indian physiotherapists from 2000 to 2014, which were limited to the Medline database10,11. Moreover, Li et al. (2018) recently stated that Clarivate Analytics’s Web of Science (WoS) is the World’s foremost scientific citation search and analytical platform, which can be used as both a research tool and dataset15. Hence, there is a need for further research that should involve the WoS database to detect high-quality research publications by Indian physiotherapists until 2018. Therefore, this study was planned to conduct a bibliometric study on the scientific output of Indian physiotherapists using WoS during the last two decades (from 1999 to 2018).
The descriptive study design was adopted to reveal the scientific output of Indian physiotherapists using an electronic literature search in the WoS database during the period from 1999 to 2018.
The search was conducted on 14th October 2019. The term ‘Indian physiotherapists’ denotes physiotherapy professionals employed in any of the academic or clinical establishments in India in the study period. The search was carried out in WoS using the following keywords “((TS=(physiotherapy) OR TS=(“physical rehabilitation”) OR TS=(“physical therapy”)) AND AD=(India))Indexes=SCI-EXPANDED, SSCI, A&HCI, CPCI-S, CPCI-SSH, ESCI, CCR-EXPANDED, IC Timespan=1999–2018”. The search started from 1999 since this study aimed to retrieve data from the past two decades.
The search methodology is described in Figure 1. Based on the inclusion criteria, 488 publications were included and proceeded for further analysis.
Retrieved articles were analyzed using Incites in WoS and Visualization of Similarities (VOS) viewer 1.6.11. VOS is a new method used for visualizing similarities between objects16,17. Incites was used to gather information on publication year, authorship ranking, source journal productivity, collaborating institutions, country-wise research collaboration, citations, and collaboration pattern of articles. In addition, the information related to h-index was obtained from the Incites in WoS. Here, the h-index reflects the productivity of authors based on their publication and citation records. It is useful because it discounts the disproportionate weight of highly cited papers or papers that have not yet been cited. The data, which is exported from the WoS database as an ISI common export (.ciw) format, were imported into VOSviewer to explore the co-occurrences of keywords used by the authors in their articles. The flowchart describing the procedures for carrying out both Incites and VOSviewer analysis is depicted in Figure 2.
Since Incites in WoS used in this study is a proprietary software, the researchers could alternatively use a tab-delimited file downloaded from WoS and use it in VOSviewer.
A total of 488 articles were included in the study; 381 research articles, 53 reviews, 34 proceedings, 9 meeting abstracts, 8 letters, and 3 editorial materials. The chosen period of study was divided into four strata with five years each. The strata were 1999–2003; 2004–2008; 2009–2013; and 2014–2018. In the first two strata, the publication count was observed in a single digit (≤9). In the third strata, this count has reached two digits with a maximum of 26 in 2013. However, in the fourth strata, an abrupt rise in the publication count was observed with a peak of 103 in 2016. Notably, the publication counts after 2016 decreased and rose slightly in 2018, but not to those levels seen in 2016 (Table 1 and Figure 3). Regarding citation count, there was a gradual rise over the research period, with a total of 2419 citations between 1999 and 2018, more than 100 of which have been documented since 2012. The highest average citation (citations/article) of ≥10 was observed only in 2006 (mean, 11.00) and 2014 (mean, 10.20).
Data obtained from Web of Science. Includes all articles types. N articles = 488.
Data obtained from Web of Science. Includes all articles types.
A total of 264 journals had published the 488 retrieved articles. The top 20 journals in which Indian physiotherapists published over the study period are displayed in Table 2. The top 20 journals published 174 articles i.e., 35.66% of total publications (N=488) in the research period. Out of the top 20 ranked journals, 11 were journals based in India, 26.79% of the total publications.
Data obtained from Web of Science. Includes all articles types. N articles = 488.
Journals | Country | h-Index | SJR Value | JCR IF | Articles | % of total articles | Total citations | Average citation (citations/article) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
International Journal of Physiotherapy | India | * | * | * | 35 | 7.17 | 6 | 0.17 |
Journal of Evolution of Medical and Dental Sciences- JEMDS | India | * | * | * | 30 | 6.15 | 4 | 0.13 |
Journal of Clinical and Diagnostic Research | India | 28 | 0.35 | * | 26 | 5.33 | 40 | 1.54 |
Haemophilia | UK | 84 | 1.16 | 3.59 | 7 | 1.43 | 68 | 9.71 |
Indian Journal of Critical Care Medicine | India | 25 | 0.34 | * | 7 | 1.43 | 53 | 7.57 |
Indian Journal of Orthopedics | India | 24 | 0.37 | 0.978 | 7 | 1.43 | 17 | 2.43 |
Journal of Orthopaedic Surgery | France | 36 | 0.43 | 0.957 | 6 | 1.23 | 36 | 6 |
Physiotherapy Theory and Practice | England | 39 | 0.54 | 1.158 | 6 | 1.23 | 25 | 4.17 |
Indian Pediatrics | India | 46 | 0.34 | 1.163 | 5 | 1.02 | 34 | 6.8 |
International Journal of Scientific Study | India | * | * | * | 5 | 1.02 | 17 | 3.4 |
Journal of Back and Musculoskeletal Rehabilitation | Netherlands | 25 | 0.53 | 0.814 | 5 | 1.02 | 0 | 0 |
Nitte University Journal of Health Science | India | * | * | * | 5 | 1.02 | 0 | 0 |
Annals of Indian Academy of Neurology | India | 22 | 0.38 | 0.898 | 4 | 0.82 | 43 | 10.75 |
Hong Kong Physiotherapy Journal | Hong Kong | 11 | 0.3 | * | 4 | 0.82 | 35 | 8.75 |
International Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery | Denmark | 90 | 1.09 | 1.961 | 4 | 0.82 | 29 | 7.25 |
Journal of Maxillofacial Oral Surgery | India | * | * | * | 4 | 0.82 | 13 | 3.25 |
Journal of Physical Therapy Science | Japan | 23 | 0.8 | 0.392 | 4 | 0.82 | 12 | 3 |
Leprosy Review | UK | 40 | 0.48 | 0.541 | 4 | 0.82 | 5 | 1.25 |
Annals of Neurosciences | India | 14 | 0.44 | * | 3 | 0.61 | 16 | 5.33 |
Bangladesh Journal of Medical Science | Bangladesh | 7 | 0.15 | * | 3 | 0.61 | 0 | 0 |
The International Journal of Physiotherapy published 35 articles, with six citations for these 35 articles, an average citation per article as 0.17. It was the most active journal found in this study and contributed to 7.17% of total publications. In contrast, the journal Haemophilia published seven articles with 68 citations for these articles, an average citation of 9.71. Similarly, Annals of Indian Academy of Neurology published four articles, with citations of 43, giving it the highest average citation of 10.75 (Table 2).
Table 3 shows the top 20 authors who worked with Indian physiotherapists to publish physiotherapy articles. These authors contributed 22.13% of total publications (N=488) in collaboration with Indian physiotherapists. Kumar S, Mahadevappa M, and Samuel AJ collectively have accounted for 5.74% of total publications (N=488). An Indian author named Kumar R (ICMR-National Institute of Occupational Health) is the Indian physiotherapist with the highest h-index (18) and had published five articles, which were cited 1372 times. The citations per article of that particular author was observed as high of 274.40. Further, the type of author collaboration was explored and the year-wise collaboration pattern of the articles was presented in Table 4. Out of 488 publications, 27.05% of articles were published by five and above authors, and 5.5% by a single author.
Data obtained from Web of Science. Includes all articles types. N articles = 488.
Data obtained from Web of Science. Includes all articles types. N articles = 488.
The top 20 institutions collaborating with Indian physiotherapists for physiotherapy research are displayed in Table 5. Among these institutions, Manipal University (India) has the highest number of publications, with 7.38% of total publications, followed by Christian Medical College Hospital (India; 3.89%), the Indian Institute of Technology (India; 3.69%) and King Saud University (KSU; Saudi Arabia; 3.69%). In total, 90% of collaborating institutions were based in India. Internationally, KSU and the University of London (UK; 1.23%) had the most active cooperation with Indian physiotherapists over this time period.
Data obtained from Web of Science. Includes all articles types. N articles = 488.
Out of the total publications (N=488), articles published by Indian physiotherapists in collaboration with authors belonging to international countries was as follows: United States (4.92%), Saudi Arabia (4.51%), UK (3.69%), Canada (1.84%), and Sweden (1.02%). Italy, Pakistan, Brazil, Australia, Malaysia, and Mexico contributed 0.82% each to total publications (Table 6). Out of the top 20 countries, Indian physiotherapists collaborated the most with the US (after India), publishing 24 articles, which secured 370 citations (average citation 15.42). Notably, articles published by Indian physiotherapists in collaboration with German authors had the highest number of average citation (41.00), though only three articles were published. Besides, the top 10 highly cited papers during the study period were provided in Table 7. Among those papers, an article published by Singh et al. (2008) in the Digest journal of Nanomaterials and Biostructures received 236 citations until 2018 with the average citation of 18.15 per year.
Data obtained from Web of Science. Includes all articles types. N articles = 488.
Data obtained from Web of Science. Includes all articles types. N articles = 488.
Using VOSviewer, the top 20 keywords used in articles (from a total of 2477 keywords) are shown in Figure 4. An article’s keyword may represent its primary material, and to some degree, the frequency of occurrence18. Likewise, co-occurrence can indicate centered themes of research in a field. Through VOSviewer, the authors observed top 20 keywords and it is shown in Table 8. Among the top 20 keywords, the minimum number of occurrences of each keyword was set to 11 and excluded the keyword “Physiotherapy,” “Rehabilitation,” and “Physical Therapy” from the formation of the cluster. There were three co-citation clusters formed using this criterion. The results showed that the keyword “Management (cluster 1 red color)” had the highest linkages (N=50) with all the 3 clusters, followed by keywords “Exercise (cluster 2 green color)” and “Reliability (cluster 3 blue color)” had 40 and 39 linkages respectively with all 3 clusters. Besides, the collaboration observed among the top 10 authors and top 10 countries were presented in Figure 5 and Figure 6 respectively. Concerning the top 10 authors collaboration, co-authorship network analysis produced a map for authors with at least four papers and formed six clusters. The most profile authors in terms of citation were observed as Kumar R and Mahadevappa M. These authors showed more collaboration. Furthermore, network visualization of countries with a minimum of four papers showed the top 10 countries in three clusters. The following pairs of countries showed a strong collaboration between them: India-USA (link strength =22), India-Saudi Arabia (link strength=22), and India-England (link strength=17).
Graphic created using VOSviewer.
Data obtained from Web of Science. Includes all articles types. N articles = 488.
Using the Scopus database, a recent study had observed that Italian physiotherapists published 1083 articles from the year 1995 to 2016. More than 50% of the total publications were produced between the years 2012 and 201613. In India, Hariohm et al. observed that a considerable increase in the research output of Indian physiotherapists, using the MEDLINE database, between the years 2000 and 2014, with a total of 182 articles11. Through this study, the authors observed that Indian physiotherapists had published 488 articles in WoS from 1999 to 2018, with a peak of 103 articles in 2016. In addition, there was a considerable drop in publication count following 2016. Remarkably, the publication count during the fourth strata (i.e., from 2014 to 2018) accounted for 73.6% (n=358) of total publications (N=488). From these results, it is inferred that Indian physiotherapists are increasingly aware of publishing more articles in high-quality journals in recent years and have enhanced their research competencies gradually to raise their scientific output. Nevertheless, a considerable drop in their publication count after 2016 indicates that there is a need for further research to reveal individual and institutional factors causing this decline and frame appropriate strategies to improve the scientific output of Indian physiotherapists.
Littman et al. analyzed the research output of 45 physical therapy faculty in the southeastern US from 2000 to 2016 using their curriculum vitae. The range of publications and the citations of these faculty was observed as 0 to 43, and 0 to 943, respectively12. Further, Italian physiotherapists published 1083 articles with 13,373 citations in the Scopus database from before 1995 to 201613. Compared to these findings, this study revealed that 488 articles published by Indian physiotherapists in WoS from 1999 to 2018 secured only 2419 citations. Specifically, an article by Singh et al. published in 2008 had a high citation count of 236 till 2018. Besides, Sturmer et al. found that 222 articles were published by Brazilian physical therapy researchers in WoS in 2010, which had a total of 1805 citations6. In contrast, this study reported that Indian physiotherapists published only 65 articles with 171 citations up to the year 2010 in WoS. Even though the articles published by Indian physiotherapists were suitable enough for several researchers to cite them often, there is a need to improve the citation count of their publications in the future.
Notably, this study observed that Indian-based journals published 26.84% of the total publications (N=488); no publications were observed in US-based journals. Further, the highest count of publications was observed in an Indian-based journal International Journal of Physiotherapy. This affinity of Indian physiotherapy researchers towards Indian-based journals might be due to the nature of their research articles, or interest in country-based journals. However, those researchers should expand their contribution to other high-quality international journals. Exploring the reasons behind Indian physiotherapists’ choice to publish in these Indian journals is beyond the scope of this study, and further research is warranted to address this critical issue. In general, the choice of researchers to publish in a journal depending on the prestige, impact factor, quality of peer reviews, acceptance rate, readership, article publishing charges, and reputation to the scientific community19,20. Besides, the journals, such as Haemophilia and Annals of Indian Academy of Neurology, showed considerable citations and a high average citation for only a few articles published in these journals. This implies that these articles might be more useful for the researchers to cite them often21.
A previous study by Man et al. found that four Hong Kong physiotherapy professors had a median h-index of 30.5 and their average total number of citations was 2930.314. Moreover, Brazilian physical therapy researchers had a median h-index of 3, according to WoS6. Recently, Vercelli et al. reported that the mean h-index of 363 Italian physiotherapists was 2.2, which ranged from 0 to 16; mean citations per author were observed as 5813. On the other hand, this study observed the top 20 authors who worked with Indian physiotherapists with the range of total citations from 0 to 1372 and h-index from 0 to 18. Particularly, Kumar R (India), had the highest h-index of 18, total citations of 1372, and citations per article of 274.40.
Hariohm et al. revealed that Manipal University is an active research institution with 59 articles in the MEDLINE database from 2000 to 201411. In line with this finding, this study also observed that Manipal University in India was the leading one among the top 20 collaborating institutions that had contributed to 7.38% of total publications (N=488). Besides, 90% of these top 20 collaborating institutions were based in India, whereas only two institutions were based in the UK and Saudi Arabia. This implies that Indian physiotherapists had more collaborations with institutions in their own country. However, there is a need for Indian physiotherapists to collaborate with international institutions to improve their scientific output.
This study reveals that Indian physiotherapists published the highest number of articles in collaboration with authors from the following countries, such as the US (4.92% of total publications i.e., N=488) and Saudi Arabia (4.51%). Whereas, the total percentage of publications with other countries is minimal. Hence, this study recommends that Indian physiotherapists should enhance their research collaboration with other countries since collaborative research allows the development of networks with early-career researchers in other countries22–24, and improves the quality of their scientific output25. Furthermore, earlier studies have also stressed the importance of international research collaboration in health care, and it is frequently regarded as an indicator of quality to develop and disseminate scientific knowledge to newly developing countries26,27.
Dash et al. stated that the keywords are one of the three pillars of a biomedical research article. Using the right keywords would augment the article being found by other researchers as these are used by abstracting and indexing services28. Hence, this study revealed the top 20 keywords that occurred in various articles using VOSviewer software. It is observed that the keyword “Management” had the highest of 50 linkages with all the three co-citation clusters.
This study observed that the scientific output of Indian physiotherapists shows an uptrend in performance since 1999, excluding 2017 and 2018, where a considerable decline was noticed. The results showed that Indian physiotherapists had mostly published in Indian-based journals, and collaborated with Indian institutions. Even though there are high-quality publications, there is a need to enhance both the quality and quantity of scientific papers to increase the high number of citations and average citations. This study also recommends that Indian physiotherapists should expand their research collaboration internationally to improve their scientific output.
The findings of this study are only limited to the WoS database. Future research can focus on studying the research output of the Indian physiotherapists in other databases to ascertain their research productivity. Future studies can also focus on analyzing individual and institutional factors influencing the research productivity of Indian physiotherapists and develop suitable strategies to enhance their scientific production.
Open Science Framework: Visualization pattern of the highly cited scientific output of Indian Physiotherapists: A bibliometric study, https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/8GSDH29
This project contains the following underlying data:
- Article level and citation data for all 488 articles retrieved.
- Journal, author, institution and country data for all 488 articles retrieved.
Data are available under the terms of the Creative Commons Zero "No rights reserved" data waiver (CC0 1.0 Public domain dedication).
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Is the work clearly and accurately presented and does it cite the current literature?
Yes
Is the study design appropriate and is the work technically sound?
Yes
Are sufficient details of methods and analysis provided to allow replication by others?
Yes
If applicable, is the statistical analysis and its interpretation appropriate?
Yes
Are all the source data underlying the results available to ensure full reproducibility?
Yes
Are the conclusions drawn adequately supported by the results?
Partly
Competing Interests: I am a coauthor of similar research work published four years ago
Reviewer Expertise: Knowledge Translation, outcome measurement and outdoor mobility in stroke
Is the work clearly and accurately presented and does it cite the current literature?
Yes
Is the study design appropriate and is the work technically sound?
Partly
Are sufficient details of methods and analysis provided to allow replication by others?
Partly
If applicable, is the statistical analysis and its interpretation appropriate?
Partly
Are all the source data underlying the results available to ensure full reproducibility?
Yes
Are the conclusions drawn adequately supported by the results?
Partly
References
1. Memon AR, Vandelanotte C, Olds T, Duncan MJ, et al.: Research Combining Physical Activity and Sleep: A Bibliometric Analysis.Percept Mot Skills. 2020; 127 (1): 154-181 PubMed Abstract | Publisher Full TextCompeting Interests: No competing interests were disclosed.
Reviewer Expertise: Physical activity, rehabilitation, exercise, scientometrics, bibliometric analyses
Is the work clearly and accurately presented and does it cite the current literature?
Yes
Is the study design appropriate and is the work technically sound?
Yes
Are sufficient details of methods and analysis provided to allow replication by others?
Yes
If applicable, is the statistical analysis and its interpretation appropriate?
Not applicable
Are all the source data underlying the results available to ensure full reproducibility?
Partly
Are the conclusions drawn adequately supported by the results?
Yes
Competing Interests: No competing interests were disclosed.
Reviewer Expertise: Rehabilitation, Sports injuries, Physical Therapy
Alongside their report, reviewers assign a status to the article:
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