Petra Millfors1, Yanhong Zhang2, Yuxia Zhang2, Bo Sun1, Lena Bergqvist1
1)Sweden 2) China
Neonatal medicine in China is developing and more premature and hospitalized neonates survive, which has led to increased focus on pain management in this population. During the last decades, China has increased efforts in biomedical research but its contribution in the field of neonates and pain is unknown. The aim of the study was to analyze scientific publications on neonates and pain from China and to compare Chinese and Swedish publications between 2002 and 2011 regarding number of publications and citations.
Chinese biomedical databases and PubMed were analyzed concerning number of publications, and Web of Science was used for citation analysis. Articles from Chinese databases were scrutinized with respect to content about painful procedures, pain assessment, and interventions.
There was a distinct increase in the number of Chinese publications on neonatal pain starting in 2004. Web of Science had a total of 3227 articles; 70 from China, 162 from Sweden. The Chinese databases generated 306 articles. From 2011 China published more articles on neonatal pain per year than Sweden, 22 and 17 respectively, whereas the number of citations of Chinese articles did not increase at the same pace.
Neonatal pain research is a rapidly growing research field in China over the last decade, implying a recent interest in this field. Chinese articles do not seem to reach the international scientific community in parity with the amount of research being done compared to Sweden.
1. Sun B, Shao X, Cao Y, Xia S, Yue H. Neonatal-perinatal medicine in a transitional period in China. Arch Dis Child Fetal Neonatal Ed. 2013;98(5):F440-4.
2. Baños JE, Ruiz G, Guardiola E. An analysis of articles on neonatal pain published from 1965 to 1999. Pain Res Manag. 2001;6(1):45-50.
