Serviços Personalizados
Journal
Artigo
Indicadores
Citado por SciELO
Acessos
Links relacionados
Citado por Google
Similares em SciELO
Similares em Google
Compartilhar
Revista de la Facultad de Medicina
versão impressa ISSN 0120-0011
Resumo
ESPINOSA, Isabel; CUENCA, Víctor; EISSA-GARCES, Ahmed e SISA, Ivan. A bibliometric analysis of COVID-19 research in Latin America and the Caribbean. rev.fac.med. [online]. 2021, vol.69, n.3, e210. Epub 12-Jan-2021. ISSN 0120-0011. https://doi.org/10.15446/revfacmed.v69n3.94520.
Introduction:
Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is one of the regions most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, there is scarce literature addressing the research strategies developed in LAC to face COVID-19.
Objective:
To quantify and assess the production of scientific publications about COVID-19 in 32 countries of LAC between January 1 and July 31, 2020.
Materials and methods:
Bibliometric study. Scientific papers on COVID-19 conducted in LAC or reporting data pertaining to LAC and published between January 1 to July 31, 2020, were searched in the Scopus, PubMed, and LILACS databases. A subgroup analysis including only original research articles was performed to determine the contribution of LAC countries to research on COVID-19, and standardization measures (# of articles per million people) were applied to compare the country-specific production of this type of articles.
Results:
A total of 1 291 publications were retrieved. Overall, most of them were non-original research articles (81.72%), and the countries with the highest scientific production were Brazil (43.91%) and Mexico (9.14%). However, after applying the standardization measures, Chile was the country with the highest production of original articles (0.58 per million inhabitants). Regarding original studies (n=236), cross-sectional design was the most common (25.84%). Diagnosis and treatment of the disease was the main research focus (n=354; 27.42%). However, in the subgroup analysis (n=236), epidemiology and surveillance were the most prevalent research focus (n=57; 24.15%).
Conclusions:
During the study period, non-original research articles were predominant in the scientific production of the LAC region, and interventional studies were scarce among original articles, while the cross-sectional design predominated. Further research with a better quality of evidence should be performed in these countries to contribute to the making of health policies aimed at easing the burden of COVID-19 in the region and preparing for future pandemics.
Palavras-chave : COVID-19; Biomedical Research; Bibliometrics; Latin America; Caribbean Region (MeSH).