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. 2024 Jan 25;74(739):e120-e125.
doi: 10.3399/BJGP.2023.0060. Print 2024 Feb.

General practice-related MeSH terms in main journals: a bibliometric analysis from 2011 to 2021

Théo Duguet  1 , Gladys Ibanez  2 , Matthieu Schuers  3 , Jean-Pierre Lebeau  4 , Kristell Roser  5 , Cécilia Saldanha Gomes  2 , Jean-Sébastien Cadwallader  2
Affiliations

General practice-related MeSH terms in main journals: a bibliometric analysis from 2011 to 2021

Théo Duguet et al. Br J Gen Pract. .

Abstract

Background: There are various Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) terms used to index general practice research, without consistency.

Aim: To understand how general practice-related research is indexed in the main general practice journals between 2011 and 2021, and to analyse the factors that influenced the choice of the general practice-related MeSH.

Design and setting: This was a quantitative bibliometric study conducted on MEDLINE.

Method: MeSH were selected according to the international definition of General Practice/Family Medicine: 'General Practice', 'Primary Health Care', 'Family Practice', 'General Practitioners', 'Physicians, Primary Care', and 'Physicians, Family'. Their use was studied from 2011 to 2021 on MEDLINE, reviewing the 20 general practice journals with the highest impact factors. A descriptive and analytical approach was used; the association of the country, journal, and year with the choice of general practice-related MeSH terms was analysed.

Results: A total of 8514 of 150 286 articles (5.7%) were using one of the general practice-related MeSH terms. The most used were 'Primary Health Care' (4648/9984, 46.6%) and 'General Practice' (2841/9984, 28.5%). A total of 80.0% (6172/7723) of the articles were related to the UK or US and 71.0% (6055/8514) of the articles came from four journals (BJGP, BMJ, Journal of General Internal Medicine, and Annals of Family Medicine). Two main country clusters emerged from the use of general practice-related MeSH: a British cluster mainly using 'General Practice' and an American cluster using 'Primary Health Care'. The journals also mainly differed in their used of these two MeSH terms.

Conclusion: Important variations in the indexation of general practice research were found. Researchers should consider combining 'Primary Health Care' and 'General Practice' in their PubMed searches to access all the general practice research, regardless of their country of origin.

Keywords: bibliometrics; family physicians, primary care; family practice; general practice; general practitioners; physicians, primary health care.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Proportion of articles using at least one general practice-related MeSH term by a) country, b) journal (using National Library of Medicine title abbreviations), and c) year, n = 8514. MeSH = Medical Subject Headings.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Proportional use of general practice-related MeSH terms according to a) country, b) journal (using National Library of Medicine title abbreviations), and c) year, n = 9984. JAMA Network = JAMA Network Open. Med Clin = Med Clin North Am. MeSH = Medical Subject Headings.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Country clusters from HCPC with publication profiles (‘n’ is the number of articles from each country). a) Hierarchical clustering on principal component analysis of the different countries considering the proportion of use of the six general practice-related MeSH terms for each country. The axis corresponds to the two principal components with their fraction of the total variance in parentheses. b) Proportion of use of the different MeSH terms in each country cluster made from the HCPC. Dim = dimension. HCPC = hierarchical clustering on principal components. MeSH = Medical Subject Headings.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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