title: An analysis of orthopaedic theses in Turkey: Evidence levels and publication rates.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The aim of this study was to present characteristics and publication patterns of studies arise from orthopedic theses obtained from National Thesis Center; database in terms of publication years, study types, topics, level of evidence between 1974 and 2014.
  
  
  METHODS
  Firstly, National Thesis Center database was searched for orthopedics and Traumatology theses. The theses, which their summary or full text were available were included in the study. The topics, study types and quality of study designs were reviewed. Then theses were searched in the PubMed database. Journals of published theses were classified according to category, scope and impact factors of the year 2014.
  
  
  RESULTS
  1508 theses were included into the study. Clinical studies comprised 71,7% of the theses, while 25,6% of the theses were non-clinical experimental and 2,7% of the theses were observational studies. Clinical studies were Level I in 8,6% (n = 93) and Level II in 5,8% of the theses (n = 63). A total of 224 theses (14,9%) were published in the journals indexed in PubMed database from 1974 to 2012. Fifty-two (23,2%) were published in SCI; 136 theses (60,7%) were published in SCI-E journals and 36 theses (16%) were published in other Journals indexed in PubMed.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The quantity and quality of published theses need to be improved and effective measures should be taken to promote quality of theses. Theses from universities and Training hospitals which did not allow open access, and; incomplete records of the National Thesis Center database were major limitations of this study.
authors.affiliation: Gülhane Training and Research Hospital, Ankara, Turkey.
authors.forename: Kenan
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Koca
authors.affiliation: Haydarpasa Sultan Abdulhamid Training and Research Hospitali İstanbul, Turkey. Electronic address: safakekinci@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Safak
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ekinci
authors.affiliation: Gülhane Training and Research Hospital, Ankara, Turkey.
authors.forename: Serkan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Akpancar
authors.affiliation: Gülhane Training and Research Hospital, Ankara, Turkey.
authors.forename: Muhammed Hanifi
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Gemci
authors.affiliation: Gülhane Training and Research Hospital, Ankara, Turkey.
authors.forename: Ömer
authors.initials: Ö
authors.lastname: Erşen
authors.affiliation: Gülhane Training and Research Hospital, Ankara, Turkey.
authors.forename: Faruk
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Akyıldız
mesh_terms: D015706:Bibliometrics; D009985:Orthopedics / Q000639:trends*; D039781:PubMed; D011643:Publishing / Q000706:statistics & numerical data* / Q000639:trends; D014194:Traumatology / Q000639:trends*; D014421:Turkey
keywords: Level of evidence; Orthopaedics; Publication patterns; Theses