The Capacity of Health Research in Afghanistan: Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract

Background: Credible evidence appropriate to the setting and accessible is fundamental to providing quality health services and education. Therefore, we aim to evaluate Afghanistan's health research capacity.

Method: Bibliometric analysis was done in four databases by keywords of “Afghanistan” including the PubMed, Web of Sciences, Scopus, and Science Direct to see how many articles have been published on Afghanistan people's health problems and to determine the contribution of indigenous institutions and scientists.

Result: Out of 1075 articles that met our inclusion criteria, just 140 (13.02%) articles were written by scholars with affiliation with Afghanistan institutions (n = 34 org). Afghanistan Universities account for 25 articles out of 140. Ministry of public health, with 52 articles, French Institute for Children with 16 articles, and Kabul University of Medical Sciences with 11 articles were leading the organizations in Afghanistan in terms of publication numbers.

Conclusion: There are few numbers of publications considering the health of Afghanistan people. The indigenous health research system's capacity is low, and dependency exists in different perspectives to the other countries. The universities of Afghanistan have not paly its role in producing knowledge.