A Scopus-Based Bibliometric Analysis of Global Tuberculosis Publications: 1849-2020

OBJECTIVE: Tuberculosis continues to become a serious public-health concern in many countries despite efforts to prevent and control global tuberculosis infections. MATERIAL AND METHODS: This study aims to present bibliometric analysis of the period 1849-2020 tuberculosis publications that are published by global researchers and indexed in the Scopus database. Although many studies have been carried out on tuberculosis, there is no study that performs bibliometric analysis of publications in this field in such a wide range of dates. Tuberculosis publications searched in the Scopus database between the period 1849-2020 were analyzed. Data on tuberculosis were presented by analyzing the number of publications, the language of publication, the countries that contribute the most to the literature, the most active institutions, the most cited publications, active authors and active journals, using appropriate quantitative and qualitative bibliometric indicators. RESULTS: 263,234 articles, published between 1849 and 2020 and searched in the Scopus database, were evaluated. The most articles (n= 8.344) were published in 2020. A total of 112,121 articles were published between 2001 and 2020. The most used publication language in the articles was English (62.48%), followed by Russian (7.25%). The country that contributed the most to the literature was the United States (13.81%), followed by India (7.18%). 3.9% of the articles were published in the journal “Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases”. CONCLUSION: The results of the present bibliometric study are expected to shed light on the planning of future tuberculosis studies and the development of health policies toward tuberculosis. Research output is low in some countries, which should make larger investments in international and national collaborative research projects in the field of tuberculosis. If doing so, many countries of limited source will benefit from research that offer novel diagnostic and screening technology of tuberculosis.