The Performance of Iranian Psychology and Psychiatry Researchers: A Scientometric Study

Abstract

The present study aims to investigate the scientific productivity, impact and collaborations of Iranian psychology and psychiatry researchers in Web of Science using a scientometric approach. A total of 1702 documents in the area of Psychology and Psychiatry which specified Iran as their affiliated country and indexed by Thomson Reuters, were selected as the population of the study. The results of the study revealed that the number of Iranian publications is increasing over the examined years. The results of the exponential regression test reported a 10.04 percent growth rate for Iranian publications in psychology and psychiatry. The most number of papers (547) has been published in 2008. Additionally, Iranian psychology and psychiatry publications in the Web of Science have received 2.81 citations per document. Moreover, Iranian psychology and psychiatry publications have received 4802 citations from 4712 documents and 21010 researchers from Iran other countries. American researchers have most cited Iranian publications among researchers from other countries. Additionally among foreign universities which cited Iranian publications, the most number of citations was received from Harvard University. The results of the study showed that more than 20% of all publications and 30% of all citations were made by Tehran University of Medical Sciences. Moreover, the analysis of the social network of co-authorship between universities using the UCINet software revealed that the Tehran University of Medical Sciences as well as the Islamic Azad University had the highest centrality degree with a value of 56 and 55, respectively. Finally, the Iranian researchers of psychology and psychiatry had collaborated with researchers from 77 countries all over the world. Among them, USA, UK and Australia were the most important collaborating partners of Iranian researchers.