Analysis of the publishing rate and the number of citations of general surgery dissertations

Abstract

Objective: A dissertation is a scientific document. However, if it is not published in a scientific journal, it will gain access to only a limited audience and thus will be unable to achieve its objective. Nevertheless, the rate of publishing in journals is not high among dissertations. In this study, we aimed to investigate the publishing rates of general surgery dissertations in journals and the total number of citations.
Material and Methods: All medical dissertations that have been prepared at general surgery departments of university hospitals and presented between the years 2006 and 2008 were analyzed. The authors checked whether the dissertations were published in a journal or not, by searching the dissertation in 4 different resources with the name of their authors.
Results: Two hundred and thirty-two dissertations were included. Half of those dissertations were experimental animal studies. Seventy dissertations were published in various journals. Fifty one (22%) of these were published in Science Citation Index Expanded journals, while 19 (8.1%) of them were published in Turkish non-Science Citation Index Expanded journals. There was no significant difference in terms of publishing rates between study types. The number of annual citations per article was 1.1. The writer of the dissertation was the first author in 35 (68,6%) articles.
Conclusion: The publishing rates of dissertations in general surgery is low, with only 22% being published in Science Citation Index Expanded journals. The citation rate was also detected to be low in our study. Consequently, a dissertation should be considered as a scientific research study and planned as such, not as obligatory assignments. The publishing rates of dissertations should be increased, and authors should be led and encouraged to publish their dissertations.

Authors declared that the research was conducted according to the principles of the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki “Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects”, (amended in October 2013).

Externally peer-reviewed.

Concept - B.M.; Design - B.M.; Supervision - B.M., M.T.O.; Resources - B.M., T.B., T.Ç., U.D., A.A., U.R.G.; Materials - B.M., T.B., T.Ç., U.D., A.A., U.R.G.; Data Collection and/or Processing - B.M.; Analysis and/or Interpretation - B.M., M.T.O.; Literature Search - B.M.; Writing Manuscript - B.M.; Critical Review - B.M., T.B., T.Ç., U.D., A.A., U.R.G., M.T.O.

No conflict of interest was declared by the authors.

The authors declared that this study has received no financial support.