Analysis of the publishing rate and the number of citations of general surgery dissertations

Özet

Objective: A dissertation is a scientific document. However, if it is not published in a scientific journal, it will gain access to only a limited audience and thus will be unable to achieve its objective. Nevertheless, the rate of publishingin journals is not high among dissertations. In this study, we aimed to investigate the publishing rates of generalsurgery dissertations in journals and the total number of citations.Material and Methods: All medical dissertations that have been prepared at general surgery departments of university hospitals and presented between the years 2006 and 2008 were analyzed. The authors checked whetherthe dissertations were published in a journal or not, by searching the dissertation in 4 different resources with thename of their authors.Results: Two hundred and thirty-two dissertations were included. Half of those dissertations were experimental animalstudies. Seventy dissertations were published in various journals. Fifty one (22%) of these were published in ScienceCitation Index Expanded journals, while 19 (8.1%) of them were published in Turkish non-Science Citation Index Expanded journals. There was no significant difference in terms of publishing rates between study types. The number ofannual citations per article was 1.1. The writer of the dissertation was the first author in 35 (68,6%) articles.Conclusion: The publishing rates of dissertations in general surgery is low, with only 22% being published in Science Citation Index Expanded journals. The citation rate was also detected to be low in our study. Consequently, a dissertationshould be considered as a scientific research study and planned as such, not as obligatory assignments. The publishingrates of dissertations should be increased, and authors should be led and encouraged to publish their dissertations.