Worldwide research productivity of paracetamol (acetaminophen) poisoning: a bibliometric analysis (2003-2012).
OBJECTIVE
There is a lack of data concerning the evaluation of scientific research productivity in paracetamol poisoning from the world. The purposes of this study were to analyse the worldwide research output related to paracetamol poisoning and to examine the authorship pattern and the citations retrieved from the Scopus database for over a decade.


METHODS
Data were searched for documents with specific words regarding paracetamol poisoning as 'keywords' in the title or/and abstract. Scientific output was evaluated based on a methodology developed and used in other bibliometric studies. Research productivity was adjusted to the national population and nominal gross domestic product (GDP) per capita.


RESULTS
There were 1721 publications that met the criteria during study period from the world. All retrieved documents were published from 72 countries. The largest number of articles related to paracetamol poisoning was from the United States (US; 30.39%), followed by India (10.75%) and the United Kingdom (UK; 9.36%). The total number of citations at the time of data analysis was 21,109, with an average of 12.3 citations per each documents and median (interquartile range) of 4 (1-14). The h-index of the retrieved documents was 57. After adjusting for economy and population power, India (124.2), Nigeria (18.6) and the US (10.5) had the highest research productivity. Countries with large economies, such as the UK, Australia, Japan, China and France, tended to rank relatively low after adjustment for GDP over the entire study period.


CONCLUSIONS
Our study demonstrates evidence that research productivity related to paracetamol poisoning has increased rapidly during the recent years. The US obviously dominated in research productivity. However, certain smaller country such as Nigeria has high scientific output relative to their population size and GDP. A highly noticeable increase in the contributions of Asia-Pacific and Middle East regions to scientific literature related to paracetamol poisoning was also observed.
Poison Control and Drug Information Center (PCDIC), College of Medicine and Health Sciences, An-Najah National University, Nablus, Palestine Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, An-Najah National University, Nablus, Palestine WHO Collaborating Centre for Drug Information, National Poison Centre, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Penang, Malaysia saedzyoud@yahoo.com.
S H
SH
Zyoud
Department of Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmacotherapy, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, An-Najah National University, Nablus, Palestine.
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Al-Jabi
Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, An-Najah National University, Nablus, Palestine.
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WM
Sweileh
D000082:Acetaminophen / Q000506:poisoning*; D000894:Anti-Inflammatory Agents, Non-Steroidal / Q000506:poisoning*; D015706:Bibliometrics; D035843:Biomedical Research / Q000706:statistics & numerical data / Q000639:trends*; D016206:Databases, Bibliographic; D006801:Humans; D011643:Publishing / Q000706:statistics & numerical data / Q000639:trends
D000894:Anti-Inflammatory Agents, Non-Steroidal; D000082:Acetaminophen
Bibliometric; Scopus; acetaminophen; citations; paracetamol; poisoning