Abstract

ELIZAGARAY FERNANDEZ, Beatriz  and  CASTRO ARMAS, Ricardo. Cuban scientific production about medicinal plants and natural products from PlantMedCUBA database, 1967-2010. Rev Cubana Plant Med [online]. 2013, vol.18, n.3, pp. 348-360. ISSN 1028-4796.

Introduction: medicinal plants have an important function as health source and review an unquestionable interest for scientific communities and society in general. The scientific field of this analysis made by bibliometric techniques is subjected to the sector of pharmaceutical sciences, medicinal plants and natural products. Objective: to describe the Cuban scientific production about medicinal plants and natural products from PlantMedCUBA database during the period 1967-2010. Methods: methods of metric information studies (publication analysis) for productivity count were applied in order to characterize, at the macro level, the scientific production about medicinal plants and natural products recorded in PlantMedCUBA database, during the period 1967-2010. Results: from the implementation of bibliometric indicators, it resulted that: the year 2002 had the highest productivity, with 98 contributions; the most productive province was Havana City Province (Havana Province at present), with 175 works; the most prominent sectors were Science and Technology (381), Education (215), and Public Health (120); the outstanding institution is the Center for Research and Drug Development, with 275 articles. The authorship productivity indicator, according to Lotka´s Law, reported a small group of great producers of 8 authors as well as a total of 134 authors in the group of medium producers and 232 in the third group of small producers. Similarly, the most representative authors were identified. Multiple authorship (721 articles), is expressed by a positive adjustment on single authorship (50). In relation to magazines, the Cuban Magazine on Medicinal Plants (368) and The Cuban Magazine on Pharmacy (357) are significantly relevant. The last indicator highlights the most used keywords by authors such as "medicinal plants" and "vegetable extracts". Conclusions: scientific collaboration is highlighted as a positive element of the sector, the Center for Research and Drug Development is identified as the highest scientific production center. It is visualized that scientific production volumes should be higher, despite the hard work of the researchers and the journals of the subject.

Keywords : medicinal plants; natural products; scientific production; bibliometry; database.

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