Evaluation of biomedical research in Saudi Arabia

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the quality and quantity of biomedical studies published in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) between 2010 and 2011.

METHODS: This study was conducted on January 2013 at the Internal Medicine Department, Taif University, Taif, KSA. An online search was conducted on PubMed to collect the articles published from KSA using the country name (Saudi Arabia) as a keyword. The search was limited to studies published in the period of 2 years from January 2010 to December 2011. The year 2012 was not included to give at least one year for citation. The total number of studies during the stated period was compared with those published from other countries in the same period, and adjusted per population size. Impact factor and number of citations were used to assess the quality of the studies.

RESULTS: A total of 1905 published articles/studies were from KSA in the said period. Australia had the maximum number of studies (100%) published per million population (1258.571+). The KSA had 72.71 articles per million population, and was ranked 16th among the other countries. Most of the articles (65.3%) were published from Riyadh followed by Jeddah (13.3%), and most of them were from the fields of Community Medicine (15.5%), Pathology (13.7%), Medicine (13.2%), and Surgery (13.1%). King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Riyadh had the highest impact factor with a mean of 2.74 +/- 3.45.

CONCLUSION: The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is lagging behind in biomedical research. While King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre appears to be doing better than other institutions in biomedical research, there is an urgent need for greater investment in biomedical research in the kingdom.