Purpose: Tobacco smoking has been implicated as the chief avoidable cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. This study was initiated due to the lack of published data concerning the real progress in research output in the use of nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) for tobacco cessation. The main objective of the current study was to describe a bibliometric review of the literature on NRT research indexed in Scopus database.

Methods: Core of the search strategy was the documents that contained specific words or phrases regarding NRT as keywords in the title. Publication output of most prolific countries was adjusted to the gross domestic product and population size.

Results: A total of 1,778 references were retrieved and published in 52 countries. The USA exceeds all world regions in research production (45.2% of total articles), with UK ranking second (13.5%), and Sweden ranking third (4.7%). No data related to NRT were published from 160 countries.  After adjusting for economy and population, the USA (15.52), the UK (6.14) and Sweden (1.53) still had the highest research productivity. The h-index for all publications was 90. The total number of citations was 39,326, with an average of 22.1 citations per document. Furthermore, the USA produces the most international collaborative documents, with involvement from 29 countries, followed by 18 countries each for the UK and Sweden.

Conclusions: The present data reveal a solid mass of research activity on NRT. The USA was by far the predominant country in the amount of NRT-based research activity, followed by the UK and Sweden. NRT-based research activities were low or not available in most countries, and thus require targeted research investments to improve NRT research and to develop a better understanding of tobacco use or control services worldwide.

Conference Title

Al-Zaytoonah University of Jordan and the University of Toledo International Pharmaceutical Conference (ZTIPC 2015)

Conference Country

Palestine

Conference Date

Jan. 1, 2016 - Jan. 1, 2016

Conference Sponsor

Al-Zaytoonah University of Jordan