Bibliometric Analysis of Systematic Review/Meta Analysis Literatures from China

Objective To better understand the current research of systematic review/meta analysis from China and to reflect scientific advances and influence on the world’s scientific community in the field. Methods The literatures were searched from Web of Science citation database (1986-2014), using the title of “meta analysis” or “systematic review”. The researching results were analyzed using bibliometric method concerning the article numbers, countries/districts, institutes, journal distribution, etc. The articles published by Chinese scientists were analyzed further. In addition, related literatures in China National Knowledge Infrastructure were also studied by bibliometric method. Results 71 476 literatures were recorded in Web of Science. The total number of publications and citations increased quickly during 1992-2014. China takes the third place in the world. Comparing with the publications of international peers, Chinese researchers articles have lower impact. Sichuan University, Shanghai Jiaotong University and Nanjing Medical University were the top three institutions that have the highest number of publications with highest quality in China. For Chinese papers, Chinese Journal of Evidence-based Medicine was the most important and popular. Condusion Evidence-based medicine attracted more and more attention and North America and Western Europe play a leading role in this field. The research in China has progressed rapidly, but still lagged behind its international peers.