Characteristics of Articles Published in the Journal of Institute of Medicine Nepal: A Cross-sectional Study

Abstract

Introduction: Scholarly journals publish various types of manuscripts. The objective of this study was to analyze the types of articles published in the Journal of Institute of Nepal (JIOM Nepal) from 2019 April to 2021 April and describe bibliometric characteristics.

Methods: Seven issues of JIOM Nepal published from April 2019 to April 2021 were analyzed for types of study, areas of medical science, the number of authors, gender of the primary author, contributing specialty, and author’s affiliation.

Results: Total articles published were 139, with a mean number of 19.8±4.4 articles per issue. More than half of the published articles were cross-sectional studies (93, 66.9%), followed by case reports (25, 17.9%). The majority of primary authors (94, 67.6%) were faculty from constituent campuses of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) Tribhuvan University. Thirty-eight (27.3%) contributing authors were females. Fifty-three (38.1%) articles published were diagnosis- related. Authors from surgical specialties were the most common article contributors [67 (48.2 %)], while basic science specialties contributed 13 (9.4%) publications.

Conclusion: Cross-sectional studies were the most commonly published articles and surgical specialties published more than half of the articles. The majority of the articles were related to diagnosis. Greater efforts are needed to produce further progress of the journal. A mixture of original articles, reviews, and case reports from different medical domains will be more interesting to the readers.