A bibliometric analysis of bipolar affective disorders using density-equalizing mapping and output benchmarking

BACKGROUND: Bipolar affective disorder (BaD) has a great impact on health systems worldwide. Although bibliometric studies have been done on this subject, these studies did not do an analysis of the contents of papers, the cooperation between countries, or of the names currently used to describe the condition. Furthermore, the number of publications since the last bibliometric study has doubled. AIM: This study was to examine the recent developments in the field, explore main topics/subject areas of the top 10 authors in this research field, and to compare diagnosis-defined data between International Classification of Diseases, 10(th) edition (ICD-10) and Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition (DSM-IV). MATERIALS AND METHODS: Using distinct search terms, the Web of Science database developed by the Thompson Reuters Institute of Scientific Information was scanned for relevant items published between 1900 and 2008. Results were analyzed using scientometric methods and density-equalizing calculations. RESULTS: We found an important increase of publications on the subject over the last decade. Most published studies came from North America and Europe, while the countries cooperating with each other were comparable to other areas of medical research. Although there has been an increase in publications on BaD (m=3.3 publications per year in the last decade), the number of works using the term bipolar disorder (BD) was considerably higher (m=141.8 publications per year in the last decade). We found that the subject areas, genetics and pharmacology were focuses of research for the 10 most prolific authors, all of whom where psychiatrists. CONCLUSION: Research interest in BaD is rising. Reflecting the two main disease classification systems, DSM and ICD, both terms BD and BaD are used in research, with a preponderance of the former. The research of the most prolific authors engages genetic and pharmacological questions.