PUBMED- INDEXED ARAB PUBLICATION ON SLEEP DISORDERS DURING THE LAST FIFTEEN YEARS

*Mustafa Afifi, MBChB, MMed, Dr. PH, MHPE

ABSTRACT

Sleep medicine has evolved into an established specialty. This study aims to analyze fifteen years (2004-2018) of sleep research biomedical publications produced in Arab countries in PubMed. A search of the MEDLINE database was performed on 10th August 2018 through PubMed, to identify all publications with the word ―sleep‖ appearing in the title, where the first author was affiliated to an Arab institution. The search results were saved as MEDLINE text files, which were converted into Excel file and then captured as a new database query via SPSS software including 353 records of SPSS data file format. The GCC countries published more than half of the total publication. The sleep publications were published in 189 different journals. However, twelve of them topped the list and covered 32% of these publications. Around 45% of the first authors are affiliated to Internal Medicine departments (including cardiology and chest diseases), basic medical sciences or sleep centers. Faculties, other than the faculty of medicine, that contributed less substantially to sleep publications included Engineering, Pharmacy, or Nursing. We aggregated the topics published by basic medical sciences, medicine departments, and sleep centers and the gaps in sleep research or the new trends were then discussed.

Keywords: Arab countries sleep disorders, PubMed.