Chinese research into ulcerative colitis from 1978 to 2017: A bibliometric analysis

Figure 1 Number of papers focused on ulcerative colitis in China from 1978 to 2017. A total of 16257 papers were published for the period of 1978-2017. Amongst them, 7561 papers were published in core journals, 4641 met the requirements of evidence-based articles, and 4177 were publications on randomized controlled trial. The number and proportion of evidence-based articles and randomized controlled trials were increased significantly. Both the quantity and quality of the literature focused on ulcerative colitis were improving.

Figure 2 Journal distribution of publications focused on ulcerative colitis. A: Proportion of papers focused on ulcerative colitis (UC) published by each journal; B: Proportion of papers addressing UC published by each core journal. A total of 16257 papers focused on UC were published in 1119 journals. Amongst them, 7561 papers were published in 524 core journals. Papers on UC were mainly published by the Chinese Journal of Coloproctology, World Chinese Journal of Digestology, Chinese Journal of Digestion, Chinese Journal of Integrated Traditional and Western Medicine on Digestion, and Modern Journal of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine.

Figure 3 Organization distribution of publications focused on ulcerative colitis. A: Proportion of papers published by academic institutions from 2000 to 2017; B: Papers published by academic institutions in core journals from 2000 to 2017. In recent years, the proportion of papers published by academic institutions fluctuated from 44.53% to 50.16% and the proportion of papers published by academic institutions in core journals fluctuated from 61.04% to 68.90%. The general trend indicated that academic institutions exerted a fundamental role in the research related to ulcerative colitis.

Figure 4 Reginal distribution of publications focused on ulcerative colitis. A: Proportion of publications in each province; B: Proportion of papers published by core journals in each province; C: Province distribution for the literature on ulcerative colitis (UC) in China; D: Regional distribution of the literature focused on UC in China from 1993 to 2017. A total of 15683 papers were analyzed in Figure 4A-C. Amongst them, 7356 papers were published in core journals. Jiangsu, Henan, Shandong, and Guangdong Provinces featured significantly in the research filed related to UC. A total of 15584 papers were analyzed in Figure 4D. Out of these, the most papers were published in East China.