title: Surgical scientific publication and the 1991-1995 war in Croatia.
abstract: The aim of this study was to evaluate surgical scientific publication in relation to the 1991-1995 war in Croatia, based on the articles indexed in Medline database that were published in 1980-2005 period. The number of articles was extracted from PubMed and analysed with trend analysis, which is preferred analytic approach over calculation of crude publication rates. The results indicate sporadic pre-war output, which was almost completely reduced by the onset of war. During wartime, a significant increasing trend in the number of published surgical articles that were related to warfare was detected (p = 0.003). During the post-war period a gradual shift towards surgical articles that were not related to warfare was detected, also marked by the significant increasing trend (p = 0.027). Both trends were significantly steeper than the overall Croatian biomedical output, suggesting that surgical scientific articles were being published more dynamically than in other biomedical areas in Croatia. The results suggest that war in Croatia has had a strong modifying effect on the surgical scientific output.
authors.affiliation: University of Zagreb, School of Medicine, Zagreb, Croatia.
authors.forename: Vanja
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Dukić
authors.forename: Nikola
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Udiljak
authors.forename: Nina
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Bartolić
authors.forename: Martina
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Vargović
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kuduz
authors.forename: Natasa
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Boban
authors.forename: Marko
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pećina
authors.forename: Ozren
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Polasek
mesh_terms: D035843:Biomedical Research / Q000639:trends*; D017523:Croatia; D013502:General Surgery; D006801:Humans; D016239:MEDLINE; D010506:Periodicals as Topic / Q000639:trends*; D014857:Warfare; D014947:Wounds and Injuries / Q000601:surgery*