title: Assessing worldwide research activity on probiotics in pediatrics using Scopus database: 1994-2014.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  A wide variety of probiotic products has been introduced into the market in the past decade. Research trends and activity on probiotics help understand how these products were evolved and their potential future role in medicine. The objective of this study was to assess the research activity on probiotics in pediatrics using bibliometric indicators and network visualization.
  
  
  METHODS
  Original and review articles on probiotics in pediatrics published worldwide were retrieved from SciVerse, Scopus (1994-2014) and analyzed. VOSviewer was used for network visualization.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The total number of documents published on probiotics in pediatrics was 2817. Research activity on probiotics in pediatrics showed approximately 90- fold increase during the study period. Approximately 22 % of published articles originated from USA and has the greatest share, however, Finland ranked first when data were stratified by population or income. The most productive institution in this field was Turku University in Finland with 82 (2.91 %) articles. Half of the prolific authors were also from Finland. Most of the published research activity appeared in Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition. Most frequently encountered title terms include nutrition, infant formula, necrotizing enetrocolitis, allergy, and diarrhea. The total number of citations for the retreived documents documents was 70991, and the average citation per article was 25.20.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Interest in probiotic research and its potential benefits in pediatric ailments is relatively recent but significantly increasing. Bibliometric analysis can be used as an indicator of the importance and growth of probiotic use in pediatrics.
authors: Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, An-Najah National University, Nablus, 44839 Palestine.
authors: Waleed M
authors: WM
authors: Sweileh
authors: Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Technology, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, An-Najah National University, Nablus, 44839 Palestine.
authors: Naser Y
authors: NY
authors: Shraim
authors: Department of Clinical and Community Pharmacy, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, An-Najah National University, Nablus, 44839 Palestine.
authors: Samah W
authors: SW
authors: Al-Jabi
authors: Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, An-Najah National University, Nablus, 44839 Palestine.
authors: Ansam F
authors: AF
authors: Sawalha
authors: Department of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, An-Najah National University, Nablus, 44839 Palestine.
authors: Belal
authors: B
authors: Rahhal
authors: Division of Microbiology and Immunology, Department of Bio-Medical Sciences, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, An-Najah National University, Nablus, 44839 Palestine.
authors: Rasha A
authors: RA
authors: Khayyat
authors: Department of Clinical and Community Pharmacy, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, An-Najah National University, Nablus, 44839 Palestine.
authors: Sa'ed H
authors: SH
authors: Zyoud
keywords: Bibliometric analysis; Pediatrics; Probiotics; Scopus