Tehran University of Medical Sciences: Participation in Twenty Five Percent of Pediatric Science Production in Iran

Objective: Scientific articles are indicators of research interests and efforts in every country. The aim of our study was to compare the scientific output between universities of medical sciences in Iran on pediatrics in the Pubmed database. Methods: In a descriptive study, we searched in Pubmed in order to assess the Iranian pediatrics publications with these words: "(Pediatric [*MeSH] OR Neonate [MeSH] OR Newborn[MeSH] OR Infant [MeSH] OR Child [MeSH] OR Children [MeSH] OR Adolescent[MeSH] OR Adolescence [MeSH])" AND (Iran [*AD] OR Iranian [AD] OR Persian [AD]). The identified articles were published May 1957 to December 2007 and we selected all articles from universities of medical sciences in Iran. We extracted year of publication, affiliation of authors and impact factor from hard copy of articles. Findings: From 819 papers published, 565 were authored by members of universities of medical sciences. Tehran University of Medical Sciences with 142 articles (17.3% of all, 25.1% from publications of universities of medical sciences) held the first place, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences with 116 (14.2% of all, 20.5% from publications of universities of medical sciences) the second place and Shaheed Beheshti University of Medical Sciences with 88 (10.7% of all, 15.5% from publications of universities of medical sciences) the third place. Regarding Impact Factors (IF) Tehran, Shaheed Beheshti and Shiraz Universities of Medical Sciences with 153, 93 and 81 were in the first, second and third place, respectively. Conclusion: Tehran University of Medical Sciences had twenty five percent of pediatric science production in Iran. This university had published higher number of papers on pediatrics among universities of medical sciences in Iran