Traumatic brain injury related research in India: An overview of published literature

AIM: This paper provides an overview of publications by Indian researchers on traumatic brain injury between 1966 and 2014, to set up a platform for evaluating and synthesizing the results and findings from brain injury research in India. MATERIALS AND METHODS: All published articles from India related to brain injury since 1966 to 2014 were retrieved from PubMed using the search for (“craniocerebral trauma”[MeSH Terms] OR (“craniocerebral”[All Fields] AND “trauma”[All Fields]) OR “craniocerebral trauma”[All Fields] OR (“head”[All Fields] AND “injury”[All Fields]) OR “head injury”[All Fields]) AND (“India”[MeSH Terms] OR “India”[All Fields]) A data base for variables like study type/category, year of publication, place of study institutes and departments to which the corresponding author belonged or where the study was conducted and the journal of publication was developed in FileMaker Pro 13 Advanced(®) software. Frequencies and percentages was obtained using R statistics software. RESULTS: A total of 624 original research articles from India were reviewed. There was a substantial increase in the number of publications from 2006 (175) to 2014 (213). Eighty percent of studies were primary clinical observational type. Only 1.6% of studies were on animal experiments. Original research articles were about 55.8%. One fourth of the studies are prospective in nature. Researchers from 46 medical departments have been involved in publishing papers on traumatic brain injury. Among these, the neurosurgery department has published highest number of publications (262), followed by the forensic medicine (32) and the neurology (21). Many institutes from 22 states have contributed in brain injury research. Delhi alone had published nearly one-fourth (23%) of papers. Eleven states had published papers in collaboration with other countries. Papers were published both in national and international journals. Neurology India had published 20.6% of papers. CONCLUSION: There is rapid increase in publications since last decade with multi departmental integration and international collaborations. However with existing brain injury resources in our country much more research work at both basic and clinical level should be encouraged.