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Co-authorship network analysis of Iranian researchers on osteoporosis

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Abstract

Summary

Our purpose was to investigate the co-authorship network of Iranian researchers in the field of osteoporosis. We used 1328 documents retrieved from databases of PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science in the analysis. The network had 183 authors in 13 clusters, low cohesion, and slow information flow between its members.

Purpose

This study aims to investigate the pattern and characteristics of cooperation between Iranian researchers in the field of osteoporosis through the co-authorship social network analysis.

Methods

All papers on osteoporosis with at least one Iranian author were retrieved from medical databases of PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science from 2009 to 2019. After the removal of duplicates, the title and abstract of the papers were reviewed by two independent reviewers, and screening was performed according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The data were entered into the BibExecl software, and the different spelling forms in the author names were manually merged. The authors’ co-occurrence matrix was then developed and entered into the UCINET software and the cohesion indexes (density, diameter, and average distance) and centrality indexes (degree, betweenness, closeness, and eigenvector) for the co-authorship network were estimated. The institutions and countries of the authors of the entered papers were also used in the network analysis and their socio-graphs were drawn.

Results

We used 1328 documents in the analysis. The co-authorship network was constructed only for authors with at least 5 papers. The network had 183 nodes (authors) in 13 clusters. Its density was 0.063 and its number of components was 2. The large component encompassed 95.6% and the small component 4.4% of authors. The average distance in the main component of the network was 3 and its diameter was 6. Larijani B was ranked first in the network in terms of degree, betweenness, closeness, and eigenvector centrality. In terms of the contribution of organizations in osteoporosis publications, Tehran University of Medical Sciences (with 35.5% of papers published in WoS database), Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences (14.7%), and Shiraz University of Medical Sciences (9.3%) retained in the first to third place, respectively. In papers published on the WoS, most Iranian authors have collaborated with authors from the USA, Belgium, Canada, and the UK respectively.

Conclusion

The co-authorship network had low cohesion with slow information flow between its members. The collaboration with young researchers by the network’s active, efficient, and broker authors will lead to the maintenance and development of the network.

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Availability of data and material

All data used in this paper are available at Web of Science, PubMed, and Scopus databases.

Code availability

Not applicable.

Funding

This study was supported by the Osteoporosis Research Center of Endocrinology and Metabolism Research Institute, Tehran University of Medical Sciences (grant no. 1398-2-103-916).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Osteoporosis Research Center, Endocrinology and Metabolism Clinical Sciences Institute, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, No. 10, Jalale-al-Ahmad Ave., Tehran, Iran

    Kazem Khalagi, Hossein Yarmohammadi, Noushin Fahimfar, Mahnaz Sanjari & Afshin Ostovar

  2. School of Allied Medical Sciences, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

    Mohammad Javad Mansourzadeh

  3. Evidence Based Medicine Research Center, Endocrinology and Metabolism Clinical Science Institute, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

    Azadeh Aletaha

  4. School of Health Management & Information Sciences, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

    Azadeh Aletaha

  5. Medical Students Research Committee, Shahed University, Tehran, Iran

    Hossein Yarmohammadi

  6. Evidence Based Practice Research Center, Endocrinology and Metabolism Research Institute, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

    Rasha Atlasi

  7. Department of Medical Library and Information Science, School of Allied Medical Sciences, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

    Rasha Atlasi

  8. School of Medicine, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

    Sepideh Banar

  9. Endocrinology Research Center, Endocrinology and Metabolism Clinical Sciences Institute, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

    Firoozeh Hajipour & Bagher Larijani

Authors
  1. Kazem Khalagi
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  2. Mohammad Javad Mansourzadeh
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  3. Azadeh Aletaha
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  4. Hossein Yarmohammadi
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  5. Rasha Atlasi
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  6. Sepideh Banar
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  7. Noushin Fahimfar
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  8. Firoozeh Hajipour
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  9. Mahnaz Sanjari
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  10. Bagher Larijani
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  11. Afshin Ostovar
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Search strategy preparation and searching the databases were performed by KKh, RA, NF, MS, FH, AO, and BL. Reviewing and screening of the papers were done by HY and SB. The analysis was performed by MJM and AA. The first draft of the manuscript was written by KKh, MJM, and AO, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Afshin Ostovar.

Ethics declarations

Ethics approval

The study was approved by the ethics committee of Endocrinology and Metabolism Research Institute, affiliated to Tehran University of Medical Science.

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Conflicts of interest

None.

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Supplementary information

ESM 1

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Appendix. Search strategy

Appendix. Search strategy

Database

Search strategy

Execution date

No. of records

PubMed

(“Osteoporosis” [Mesh] OR Osteop* [TIAB] OR “Bone Density” [Mesh] OR “Bone Density” [TIAB] OR “Bone Densities” [TIAB] OR “Bone Mineral” [TIAB] OR “Bone Loss” [TIAB] OR “Bone health” [TIAB] OR “Bone Quality” [TIAB] OR “Bone Marker” [TIAB] OR “Bone Markers” [TIAB] OR “Bone Mass” [TIAB] OR “Bone Turnover” [TIAB] OR “bone turn-over” [TIAB] OR “Bone Resorption” [TIAB] OR “Bone Formation” [TIAB] OROsteolysis [TIAB] OR ossification [TIAB] OR “osseous density” [TIAB] OR “skeletal mass” [TIAB] OR “Bone Diseases, Metabolic” [Mesh] OR (Bone [TIAB] AND Diseases [TIAB] AND Metabolic [TIAB]) OR “Bone Remodeling” [TIAB] OR “Bone Regeneration” [TIAB] OR “Densitometry” [Mesh] OR Densitometr* [TIAB] OR (Trabecular [TIAB] AND bone [TIAB] AND score [TIAB])OR “DXA” [TIAB] OR “DEXA Scan” [TIAB] OR “DEXA Scans” [TIAB] OR “Photon Absorptiometry” [TIAB] OR (Absorptiometry [TIAB] AND (“Dual-Energy” [TIAB] OR DPX [TIAB] OR “Dual X-Ray” [TIAB])) OR ((Densitometry [TIAB] OR Photodensitometry [TIAB]) AND X-Ray [TIAB])) AND IRAN[AD]

12 Sep 2019

1584

Web of Science (Indexes: SCI-EXPANDED, SSCI, A&HCI, CPCI-S, CPCI-SSH, BKCI-S, BKCI-SSH, ESCI, CCR-EXPANDED, IC.)

TS=(Osteop* OR (Bone NEAR/3 (Densit* OR Mineral OR Loss OR health* OR Quality OR Marker OR Mass OR Turnover OR turn-over OR Resorption OR Formation)) OR Osteolysis OR ossification OR (osseous NEAR/3 density) OR (skeletal NEAR/3 mass) OR (Bone NEAR/3 Diseases NEAR/3 Metabolic) OR “Bone Remodeling” OR “Bone Regeneration” OR Densitometr* OR (Trabecular NEAR/3 bone NEAR/3 score) OR “DXA” OR (DEXA NEAR/3 Scan) OR (Photon NEAR/3 Absorptiometry) OR (Absorptiometry NEAR/3 (“Dual-Energy” OR DPX OR “Dual X-Ray”)) OR ((Densitometry OR Photodensitometry) NEAR/3 X-Ray)) AND AD=(IRAN)

12 Sep 2019

2452

Scopus

TITLE-ABS-KEY (Osteop* OR (Bone W/3 (Densit* OR Mineral OR Loss OR health* OR Quality OR Marker OR Mass OR Turnover OR turn-over OR Resorption OR Formation)) OR Osteolysis OR ossification OR (osseous W/3 density) OR (skeletal W/3 mass) OR (Bone W/3 Diseases W/3 Metabolic) OR “Bone Remodeling” OR “Bone Regeneration” OR Densitometr* OR (Trabecular W/3 bone W/3 score ) OR “DXA” OR (DEXA W/3 Scan) OR (Photon W/3 Absorptiometry) OR (Absorptiometry W/3 (“Dual-Energy” OR DPX OR “Dual X-Ray”))OR ((Densitometry OR Photodensitometry) W/3 X-Ray)) AND AFFIL (IRAN)

12 Sep 2019

2979

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Khalagi, K., Mansourzadeh, M.J., Aletaha, A. et al. Co-authorship network analysis of Iranian researchers on osteoporosis. Arch Osteoporos 16, 74 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11657-021-00914-9

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