Investigating the articles on HIV/AIDS from Turkey with bibliometric methods

Introduction: The purpose of the study was to determine the volume and extent of general human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV)/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) research in Turkey as well as the coverage of national HIV/AIDS research agenda. Material and methods: Web of Science (WoS) Core Collection advanced search engine was applied to conduct bibliometric search. "HIV or AIDS or HIV/AIDS or Human immunodeficiency virus or HIV-1 or HIV-2 or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome" and "Turkey" were used as search key words. In addition, the study included "Language = English", "Document area = medicine" and "Document type = Article". We also selected science citation index expanded (SCI-EXPANDED) and social sciences citation index (SSCI) as Web of Science indexes. The data in WoS improved all information on publications, including fields of study, institutions, group authors, funding agencies, journals, citations, and co-authorship. Results: In total, 313 articles were found. The first document was published in 1996, and 310 (99%) papers were published in the last 20 years. The documents were mostly (62.300%) published in science citation index expanded (SCI-EXPANDED) indexed journals. Most of the publications were from medicine general internal (33.866%) area. The top-ranked affiliations from Turkey in HIV/AIDS research were Istanbul University (19.169%), Ege University (10.863%), University of Health Sciences (9.265%), and Hacettepe University (8.626%). ACTHIV-IST (ACTion against HIV in Istanbul) study group (n = 3, 0.958) was Turkey's most productive HIV/AIDS research group. 87.220% of the studies were not funded. Conclusions: According to the findings, Turkey has limited HIV/AIDS research output. Furthermore, the majority of investigations were conducted by only a few centers. Because the study covered the entire country, and there are more centers that follow HIV/AIDS patients, these centers should also take part in the research. As a result, the current study emphasizes the importance of increasing targeted financing for HIV/AIDS research.