Assessing worldwide research activity on probiotics in pediatrics using Scopus database: 1994 – 2014
Publication Type
Original research
Authors
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Background:
A wide variety of probiotic products has been introduced into the market in the past decade.
Research trends and activity on probiotics help understand how these products were evolved and their potential
future role in medicine. The objective of this study was to assess the research activity on probiotics in pediatrics
using bibliometric indicators and network visualization.
Methods:
Original and review articles on probiotics in pediatrics published worldwide were retrieved from SciVerse,
Scopus (1994
2014) and analyzed. VOSviewer was used for network visualization.
Results:
The total number of documents published on probiotics in pediatrics was 2817. Research activity on
probiotics in pediatrics showed approximately 90- fold increase during the study period. Approximately 22 % of
published articles originated from USA and has the greatest share, however, Finland ranked first when data were
stratified by population or income. The most productive institution in this field was Turku University in Finland
with 82 (2.91 %) articles. Half of the prolific authors were also from Finland. Most of the published research activity
appeared in
Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition
. Most frequently encountered title terms include
nutrition, infant formula, necrotizing enetrocolitis, allergy, and diarrhea. The total number of citations for the
retreived documents documents was 70991, and the average citation per article was 25.20.
Conclusions:
Interest in probiotic research and its potential benefits in pediatric ailments is relatively recent but
significantly increasing. Bibliometric analysis can be used as an indicator of the importance and growth of probiotic
use in pediatrics.
Keywords:
Pediatrics, Probiotics, Bibliometric analysis, Scopus
Journal
Title
World Allergy Organization Journal
Publisher
scopus
Publisher Country
Germany
Publication Type
Prtinted only
Volume
9
Year
2016
Pages
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