An analysis of reporting practices in the top 100 cited health and medicine-related bibliometric studies from 2019 to 2021 based on a proposed guidelines

Abstract

Bibliometric analysis has gained popularity as a quantitative research methodology to evaluate scholarly productivity and identify trends within specific research areas. However, there are currently no established reporting guidelines for bibliometric studies. The present study aimed to investigate the reporting practices of bibliometric research related to health and medicine based on a guidelines “Preferred Reporting Items for Bibliometric Analysis (PRIBA)” proposed in this study. The Science Citation Index, Expanded of the Web of Science was used to identify the top 100 articles with the highest normalized citation counts per year. The search was conducted on April 9, 2022, using the search topic “bibliometric” and including publications from 2019 to 2021. The results substantiated the need for a standardized reporting guideline for bibliometric research. Specifically, among the 25 proposed items in the PRIBA, only five were consistently reported across all articles examined. Further, 11 items were reported by at least 80% of the articles, while nine items were reported by less than 80% of the articles. In conclusion, our findings suggest that the reporting practices of bibliometric studies in the field of health and medicine are in need of improvement. Future research should be conducted to refine the PRIBA guidelines.