Kulliyyyah of Medicine, International Islamic University Malaysia
Abstract
Introduction: The Medical imaging service in Malaysia is expanding. The presence of
imaging technologies needs to be supported by homegrown research to optimize their
use. This study investigated the contribution of researches by Malaysian practitioners to
the field of Medical imaging in the Malaysian Citation index (MyCite) database.
Materials and method: Bibliometric and thematic analyses were performed on
publications featured in the database from 2006 to 2016 using 13 keywords; radiology,
radiography, medical imaging, radiation, x-ray, neuroimaging, nuclear imaging,
magnetic resonance imaging, computed tomography scan, mammogram, ultrasound,
fluoroscopy, and intravenous urogram.
Results: A total of 268 articles were identified. The study reported the publications from
Malaysians (54.1%) followed by non-Malaysians (41.8%) and collaboration between
authors (4.1%). The researchers were mostly from university-based (67.4%) and hospital
university-based (21.3%) compared to clinical-based (5.6%) researchers. For thematic
analysis, the majority of the authors focused on certain topics such as clinical (42.9%)
and modality (20.1%) with only a few on safety (12.3%), technical (9.7%), education
(7.46%), professionalism (4.5%), quality (2.6%) and economy (0.4%) researches.
Conclusion: The low number of publications related to Medical imaging do not reflect
the real involvement of practitioners in research. Their research findings could have
been indexed in other databases besides MyCite. However, the open access facility
offered by MyCite should be optimized. The involvement of clinical-based practitioners
can be enhanced in areas involving safety, technical, education, professionalism, quality
and economy. Collaborative efforts by the practitioners could increase the number of
publications and enhance homegrown research that will address local needs
