RESUMEN

Objetivo:

Describir la producción científica sobre plantas medicinales con, al menos, un autor con filiación peruana publicada entre el 2000 y el 2019.

Materiales y métodos:

Se realizó un estudio bibliométrico mediante una búsqueda sistemática en la base de datos Scopus, de donde se seleccionaron artículos originales o comunicaciones breves sobre plantas medicinales que tuvieran, al menos, un autor con una filiación institucional peruana. Se describen las características de las publicaciones, instituciones, países y autores que participaron en estas investigaciones. Se calculó la proporción de colaboración internacional, el índice de transitoriedad, y las redes de colaboración institucional y de coautoria.

Resultados:

Se incluyeron 200 artículos originales publicados en 83 revistas, con una tendencia creciente, aunque irregular. La institución más productiva fue la Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, y la revista en la que más se publicó fue Journal of Ethnopharmacology. Las redes de autoría y de colaboración institucional mostraron la influencia de la colaboración internacional en estas publicaciones (53,0%).

Conclusiones:

La producción científica peruana sobre plantas medicinales tiene una tendencia creciente, se concentra en ámbitos académicos universitarios y se publica en revistas de alto impacto, debido, en parte, al alto nivel de cooperación internacional existente.

Palabras clave:
Ciencia de la Información; Plantas Medicinales; Bibliometría; Descubrimiento del Conocimiento; Edición; Cooperación Internacional; Terapias Complementarias; Artículo de Revista; Comunicación en Salud; Bases de Datos Bibliográficas

ABSTRACT

Objective:

To describe the scientific output on medicinal plants published between 2000 and 2019 with at least one author with Peruvian affiliation.

Materials and methods:

A bibliometric study was carried out by conducting a systematic search in the Scopus database, from which original articles or short communications on medicinal plants that had at least one author with Peruvian institutional affiliation were selected. The characteristics of the publications, institutions, countries and authors who participated in this research are described. The ratio of international collaboration, the transience index, and the institutional and co-authorship collaboration networks were calculated.

Results:

A total of 200 original articles published in 83 journals were included. The quantity of articles showed an increasing, though irregular trend during the studied period. The most productive institution was the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, and the journal in which most of the articles were published was the Journal of Ethnopharmacology. Authorship and institutional collaboration networks showed the influence of international collaboration in these publications (53.0%).

Conclusions:

Peruvian scientific output on medicinal plants shows an increasing trend, observed mainly in academic university settings. The articles are published on high-impact journals, due in part to the high level of international cooperation.

Keywords:
Information Science; Plants, Medicinal; Bibliometrics; Knowledge Discovery; Publishing; International Cooperation; Complementary Therapies; Journal Article; Health Communication; Databases, Bibliographic

INTRODUCTION

Since recent times, humans have used medicinal plants as a for therapeutic purposes, and knowledge about their properties is passed on from generation to generation ¹1. Mathez-Stiefel S-L, Vandebroek I. Distribution and Transmission of Medicinal Plant Knowledge in the Andean Highlands: A Case Study from Peru and Bolivia. Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2012;2012:959285. doi: 10.1155/2012/959285.
https://doi.org/10.1155/2012/959285... ^,22. Caballero-Serrano V, McLaren B, Carrasco JC, Alday JG, Fiallos L, Amigo J, et al. Traditional ecological knowledge and medicinal plant diversity in Ecuadorian Amazon home gardens. Global Ecology and Conservation. 2019;17:e00524. doi: 10.1016/j.gecco.2019.e00524.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gecco.2019.e00... . With industrialization, medicinal plants were used as an input to isolate compounds with biological activity to develop drugs and treat various diseases; these procedures were possible thanks to the application and generation of knowledge through the scientific method ³3. Singh R. Medicinal Plants: A Review. Journal of Plant Sciences. 2015;3(1):50. doi: 10.11648/j.jps.s.2015030101.18.
https://doi.org/10.11648/j.jps.s.2015030... .

In recent years, the use of medicinal plants has increased worldwide, representing a market growth from 60 billion dollars in 2003 to nearly 80 billion dollars in 2012 ⁴4. Allkin B. Useful Plants - Medicines: At Least 28,187 Plant Species are Currently Recorded as Being of Medicinal Use. Dans: Willis KJ, directeur. State of the World's Plants 2017. [Internet]. London (UK): Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; 2017 [citado el 11 diciembre del 2019]. (Wellcome Trust- Funded Monographs and Book Chapters). Disponible en: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK464488/.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK464488/... ^,55. Akinyemi O, Oyewole S, Jimoh K. Medicinal plants and sustainable human health: a review. Horticult Int J. 2018;2(4):194-195. doi: 10.15406/hij.2018.02.00051.
https://doi.org/10.15406/hij.2018.02.000... . Peru is a country with a great wealth and diversity of medicinal plants. Peruvian population is known to use at least 5,000 different species of plants in activities such as food, construction, crafts and ornaments, and for their therapeutic or toxic properties ⁶6. Brack Egg A. Diccionario enciclopédico de plantas útiles del Perú. Cuzco: Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo; Centro de Estudios Regionales Andinos Bartolomé de Las Casas; 1999.. There is evidence that their use is widespread in the population, and even its consumption takes place well before going to the health services⁷7. Mejía Gálvez JAM, Carrasco E, Miguel JL, Flores SA. Conocimiento, aceptación y uso de medicina tradicional peruana y de medicina alternativa/complementaria en usuarios de consulta externa en Lima Metropolitana. Rev Per Med Integrativa. 2017;2(1):47-57. doi: 10.26722/rpmi.2017.21.44.
https://doi.org/10.26722/rpmi.2017.21.44... ^,88. Oblitas G, Hernández-Córdova G, Chiclla A, Antich-Barrientos M, Ccorihuamán-Cusitito L, Romaní F. Empleo de plantas medicinales en usuarios de dos hospitales referenciales del Cusco, Perú. Rev Peru Med Exp Salud Publica. 2013;30(1):64-8. doi: 10.1590/S1726-46342013000100013.
https://doi.org/10.1590/S1726-4634201300... .

Pamo-Reyna found 45 investigations on medicinal plants’ properties published in Peruvian medical journals in the period 2004-2008 ⁹9. Pamo-Reyna OG. Características de los trabajos publicados sobre las propiedades de las plantas en revistas médicas peruanas. Rev Peru Med Exp Salud Publica. 2009;26(3):314-23. Disponible en: http://www.scielo.org.pe/scielo.php?pid=s1726-46342009000300008&script=sci_arttext.
http://www.scielo.org.pe/scielo.php?pid=... . However, the context for promoting scientific research in our country has changed dramatically. For example, from the legal point of view, principles and measures have been applied, such as the Law that promotes scientific research, technological development and technological innovation (Ley 30309), or the new University Law (Ley 30220). In this sense, there are local studies that have reported the positive impact on national scientific production in all fields of knowledge ¹⁰10. Consejo Nacional de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación Tecnológica. Informe N°1 - Principales Indicadores Bibliométricos de la Actividad Científica Peruana 2006-2011 [Internet]. Lima: CONCYTEC; 2014 Disponible en: http://bvcyt.concytec.gob.pe/images/publicaciones/principales_indicadores_2006_2011.pdf., but the situation in specific areas, such as the use of medicinal plants, is still unknown.

Bibliometric studies help to determine the impact of scientific output in a given area of knowledge and, through the study of collaborative networks, visualize the dynamics of production, analyzing authors, institutions and contributing countries ¹¹11. Cooper ID. Bibliometrics basics. J Med Libr Assoc. 2015;103(4):217-8. doi: 10.3163/1536-5050.103.4.013.
https://doi.org/10.3163/1536-5050.103.4.... . There are studies that describe the scientific output on medicinal plants in international contexts ¹²12. Salmerón-Manzano E, Garrido-Cardenas JA, Manzano-Agugliaro F. Worldwide Research Trends on Medicinal Plants. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020;17(10):3376. doi: 10.3390/ijerph17103376.
https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17103376... ^,1313. Yeung AWK, Heinrich M, Atanasov AG. Ethnopharmacology-A Bibliometric Analysis of a Field of Research Meandering Between Medicine and Food Science?. Front Pharmacol. 2018;9:215. doi: 10.3389/fphar.2018.00215.
https://doi.org/10.3389/fphar.2018.00215... , or their use to treat diverse pathologies ¹⁴14. García-García P, López-Muñoz F, Rubio G, Martín-Agueda B, Alamo C. Phytotherapy and psychiatry: bibliometric study of the scientific literature from the last 20 years. Phytomedicine. 2008;15(8):566-76. doi: 10.1016/j.phymed.2008.04.014.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.phymed.2008.04... ; however, in Peru there are few precedents that describe the dynamics of research in this area. Therefore, the objective of the study is to describe the scientific output on medicinal plants with at least one author with Peruvian affiliation, published between 2000 and 2019 in journals indexed in Scopus.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Study design

We conducted a bibliometric study using Scopus. This database was created in 2004 and contains the abstracts and citations of academic publications from peer-reviewed journals, which go through a rigorous selection process, which ensures the quality of the scientific information provided ¹⁵15. Baas J, Schotten M, Plume A, Côté G, Karimi R. Scopus as a curated, high-quality bibliometric data source for academic research in quantitative science studies. Quantitative Science Studies. MIT Press. 2020;1(1):377-86. doi: 10.1162/qss_a_00019.
https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00019... .

Population and sample

A systematic search for information was carried out on Scopus. This study included original articles or short communications (or similar denominations) on the properties of plant species recognized as “medicinal” in management documents of the Peruvian health systems; these publications had at least one author with a Peruvian institutional affiliation (regardless of the author’s position), published between January 1, 2000 and December 31, 2019. For this purpose, the Floristic Catalogue of Peruvian Medicinal Plants, issued by the Instituto Nacional de Salud and the National Petition for Products, Resources and Related Therapeutic Inputs for Use in Complementary Medicine of the Social Health Insurance (EsSalud) were considered. These documents were useful to make a list of a list of Peruvian medicinal plants (Supplementary material 1), due to the inconveniences to find information on medicinal plants¹⁶16. Ningthoujam SS, Talukdar AD, Potsangbam KS, Choudhury MD. Challenges in developing medicinal plant databases for sharing ethnopharmacological knowledge. J Ethnopharmacol. 2012;141(1):9-32. doi: 10.1016/j.jep.2012.02.042.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jep.2012.02.04... .

Finally, the search terms were chosen: “plant extracts” OR “medicinal plants” OR “plants, medicinal” OR “phytotherapy” OR “medicinal herbs” OR “phytomedicine” (Supplementary material 2).

Studies with designs that analyze the process of plant drug development with a traditional perspective ¹⁷17. Patwardhan B, Vaidya ADB. Natural products drug discovery: accelerating the clinical candidate development using reverse pharmacology approaches. Indian J Exp Biol. 2010 [citado el 2 de abril del 2019]; 48(3):220-7. Disponible en: http://nopr.niscair.res.in/handle/123456789/7395.
http://nopr.niscair.res.in/handle/123456... were included, either in the discovery phase (ethnobotanical, observational and phytochemical studies) or in the development phase (preclinical studies [in vivo and in vitro] and clinical trials). Studies in which synthetic substances based on components of plant species were used. Studies on physical properties or cultivation aspects, narrative reviews, systematic reviews, book chapters, clinical practice guidelines or case reports were excluded.

Study variables

The information collected from the selected articles was about the year of publication, language of publication (English, Spanish or Portuguese), areas of knowledge according to the Scopus classification (pharmacology, medicine, biochemistry/molecular biology, chemistry, immunology and microbiology, health professions, social sciences, etc.), Peruvian institutions that participated in the research (frequency, H index, average number of citations per document), as well as research designs (ethnobotanical, observational, phytochemical, preclinical and clinical studies). Articles were manually classified as per their design. Additionally, the characteristics of the most productive institutions (more than five published articles), the number of accumulated citations and the citations per publication were described.

Subsequently, we evaluated institutional collaboration networks and some associated bibliometric indicators: percentage of international collaboration, proportion of Peruvian authors in collaborative publications, frequent-collaboration countries, and association between the number of citations and the presence of international collaboration.

Likewise, the number of authors for each study was determined and the characteristics of the most productive authors (with more than ten publications), their filiations and H indexes were presented. As a bibliometric indicator, the transience index was calculated, defined as the proportion of authors who published only one article during the study period.

Finally, we identified the journals in which these studies were published, their country, H index, Scopus quartile, citations per document and percentage of international cooperation. This information was obtained from the Scimago Journal & Country Rank website (https://www.scimagojr.com/).

Database construction

The results of the systematic search went through a quality control process, where we verified that the records met the selection criteria, then saved the data in a Scopus list and exported it as .csv and .ris files.

We exported the .ris file to Mendeley Desktop version 1.19.4 ® (2008-2019 Mendeley Ltd.), where the authors’ writing was standardized and possible duplications were checked. Then, we analyzed the resulting file and used the BibExcel ® program, version 2016-02-20, to create files with extension .net and .vec; which were used to make the collaboration networks graphics with the program Gephi 0.9.2. ® (Gephi contributors, 2008-2017).

Statistical analysis

The .xlsl file was imported into the STATA v.13.0 program (College Station, TX: StataCorp LP. 2013 ®), from which we obtained absolute frequencies, relative frequencies (percentages) and summary measurements (mean and standard deviation or median and interquartile range). We evaluated the association between the number of citations and the presence of international cooperation with the Mann-Whitney U test, and considered a value of p < 0.05 as statistically significant. The figures and tables were elaborated with the program Microsoft Excel ® 2019.

Ethical aspects

Scopus was accessed by using an institutional license (Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología), but it was not necessary to access the full versions of the articles included in this analysis. The ethical considerations of the World Medical Association’s health and biobanking databases were followed ¹⁸18. The World Medical Association. Declaración de la ANM sobre las consideraciones éticas de las bases de datos de salud y los biobancos. Declaración de Taipei. [Internet]. 2016 [citado el 2 de abril del 2019]. Disponible en: https://www.wma.net/es/policies-post/declaracion-de-la-amm-sobre-las-consideraciones-eticas-de-las-bases-de-datos-de-salud-y-los-biobancos/.
https://www.wma.net/es/policies-post/dec... .

RESULTS

Production indicators

The search strategy retrieved 300 articles, of which 200 were included. Exclusions: the objective of 35 studies was other than evaluating the properties of medicinal plants; 31 articles evaluated the physicochemical and other properties related to the cultivation of the plants; 10 articles did not have Peruvian affiliation; 10 articles used synthetic derivatives. Additionally, 2 book chapters, 2 systematic reviews, 7 narrative reviews, 1 clinical practice guide and 2 case reports were found.

Regarding the areas of knowledge, most of the publications covered pharmacology and toxicology (27.0%), medicine (22.7%), biological sciences/agriculture (17.4%), and biochemistry (13.4%). Preclinical in vivo studies (in animals) represented 29.5% of the designs found, followed by preclinical in vitro studies (25.5%). Additionally, 48 studies (24.0%) had the objective of detecting phytochemical compounds and 15 publications (7.5%) were the product of transversal observational studies that evaluated the use of medicinal plants in different populations. Ethnobotanical studies was the main topic in 11 studies (5.5%) and only 1 study with a qualitative design was found. 14 clinical studies were conducted in humans, 9 were pre-post studies (4.5%) and 5 were randomized clinical trials (2.5%).

The articles included were published in 83 journals. A sixth-order polynomial trend was observed in publications between 2000 and 2019 (R2=0.706), with an average annual growth rate of 18.6%. This rate was negative in the years 2003, 2005, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, and 2018 (Figure 1). Most of the publications (73.5%) were in English, only 51 (25.5%) in Spanish, and 2 (0.1%) in Portuguese.

The most cited article was “Antimicrobial activity of selected Peruvian medicinal plants” by Rojas et al., published in 2003 in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology, with 179 citations. This journal had the most articles published (15.5%), followed by the Revista Peruana de Biología (6.5%) and the Revista Peruana de Medicina Experimental y Salud Pública (6.0%) (Table 1).

Collaboration indicators

In this study, 237 institutions were found as affiliations of the retrieved articles, 79 of them were Peruvian (33.3%). The Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos (UNMSM) was the institution with the highest production, with 54 articles, followed by the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia (UPCH) with 52 articles and the Universidad Agraria La Molina (UNALM) with 17 articles; although these last two institutions had a higher average of citations per publication than the UNMSM (Table 2).

International cooperation was found in 53.0% of the articles, with 29 countries overall, including the United States (26 publications), France (19 publications) and Spain (15 publications). In the collaborative articles, the average percentage of Peruvian authors participation was 87.5% (7.1%-87.5%). In 28 (26.4%) collaborative articles the first author had Peruvian affiliation and in 19 (17.9%) he was a corresponding author. The articles that had international cooperation had a median of 17 (IQR: 33) citations, while those with only Peruvian authors were cited 5 (IQR: 15) times; the difference found was significant (p < 0.001).

We found 809 authors, of which only 8 had an output greater than or equal to 10 publications. Among the most productive authors, we found Gustavo Francisco Gonzáles with 24 publications (H index of 36), Manuel Gasco with 13 publications (H index of 21) and Rosario Rojas Durán with 13 publications (H index of 16). Four authors were affiliated with the UPCH, 2 had French affiliation and 2 were from the UNMSM (Table 3). Among the researchers, 632 were 1-article-authors, which provided a transience index of 78.0%.

Collaboration networks

When assessing the levels of inter-institutional collaboration, a collaborative network led by the UNMSM, the UPCH and supported by French institutions was found. Both Peruvian institutions also collaborate with other smaller networks led by the Universidad Nacional de la Amazonía Peruana (UNAP), the Universidad Nacional San Luis Gonzaga and the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (Figure 2).

When evaluating the collaboration networks among authors, we found a close collaboration among three networks led by Rosario Rojas Durán, Michel Sauvain and Gustavo Francisco Gonzáles; all researchers affiliated to UPCH. On the other hand, we found a network led by Oscar Herrera Calderon and Jorge Arroyo Acevedo, researchers affiliated to the UNMSM. Up to 10 isolated collaborative networks were found, with groups of researchers who have published at least three articles on the subject of study (Figure 3).

DISCUSSION

Scientific production in medicinal plants by authors with at least one Peruvian affiliation has shown a growing, though irregular, trend. This tendency is not different to the one found in other studies; for example, Wai Kan Yeung et al. carried out an analysis of the publications linked to ethnopharmacology indexed in World of Science from 1958 to 2018, in which they showed an increasing tendency of publications since 2006 ¹³13. Yeung AWK, Heinrich M, Atanasov AG. Ethnopharmacology-A Bibliometric Analysis of a Field of Research Meandering Between Medicine and Food Science?. Front Pharmacol. 2018;9:215. doi: 10.3389/fphar.2018.00215.
https://doi.org/10.3389/fphar.2018.00215... . However, the results are not similar to those obtained by studies from other countries such as Cuba, in which we observe a constant production since 2004 ¹⁹19. Elizagaray Fernández B, Castro Armas R. Producción científica cubana sobre plantas medicinales y productos naturales a partir de la base de datos PlantMedCUBA, 1967-2010. Rev Cubana Plant Med 2013; [citado el 11 diciembre del 2019] 18(3):348-60. Disponible en: http://scielo.sld.cu/scielo.php?pid=S1028-47962013000300003&script=s-ci_arttext&tlng=pt.
http://scielo.sld.cu/scielo.php?pid=S102... .

Institutions involved in the publication of these articles are usually academic, which shows the great importance of universities as knowledge generators in the use of medicinal plants. These data reinforce the findings made by Córdova Rengifo, who proposes a model about research interest on medicinal plants in universities, based on the observation of their use in the general population, with the motivation of validating the medicinal properties attributed to them from the scientific point of view ²⁰20. Córdova Rengifo J. Uso y utilización de plantas medicinales en universidades de Lima [tesis para optar el título de licenciado en Antropología]. Lima: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú; 2011 [citado el 8 de enero 2020]. Disponible en: http://tesis.pucp.edu.pe/repositorio/handle/20.500.12404/1077.
http://tesis.pucp.edu.pe/repositorio/han... . Likewise, the consensus document of a group of experts on medicinal plants, promoted by the Pan American Health Organization, mentions that, although there is a wide variety of research lines in universities, the limitations in scientific research at this level are summarized as the lack of accredited laboratories to carry out specialized studies and the little innovation culture that does not encourage the generation of national patents ²¹21. Organización Panamericana de la Salud. Situación de las plantas medicinales en Perú. Informe de reunión del grupo de expertos en plantas medicinales. [Internet]. OPS; [citado el 11 diciembre del 2019]; 2018. Disponible en: https://iris.paho.org/handle/10665.2/50479.
https://iris.paho.org/handle/10665.2/504... .

These deficiencies may partially explain the high proportion of international collaboration found and the resulting inter-institutional collaborative networks, led by UNMSM, UPCH and UNAP, and supported by French and American institutions. In this regard, it should be remembered that the World Health Organization encourages the formation of research networks on medicinal plants ²²22. Tilburt JC, Kaptchuk TJ. Herbal medicine research and global health: an ethical analysis. Bull World Health Organ. 2008;86(8):594-9. doi: 10.2471/BLT.07.042820.
https://doi.org/10.2471/BLT.07.042820... , while the most developed traditional medical systems, such as traditional Chinese medicine or AYUSH (Ayurveda, Yoga, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy) see international collaboration as an effective method for disseminating and using their natural resources in other populations ²³23. Batugal P, Kanniah J, Lee S, Oliver J. Medicinal Plants Research in Asia -Volume I: The Framework and Project Workplans. Malasia: Bioversity International; 2004..

Although it is observed that the greatest production of articles comes from Peruvian public universities, such as UNMSM or UNALM, the highest number of citations per publication was found in the articles produced by UPCH (private university) researchers. Likewise, articles with international cooperation were more cited in comparison to those that only included Peruvian authors, this coincides with the high proportion of international cooperation found. These characteristics, associated to a transience index higher than 60%, show a field of knowledge in which scientific information is not yet totally consolidated ²⁴24. Kawamura M, Thomas CD, Tsurumoto A, Sasahara H, Kawaguchi Y. Lotka's law and productivity index of authors in a scientific journal. J Oral Sci. 2000;42(2):75-8. doi: 10.2334/josnusd.42.75.
https://doi.org/10.2334/josnusd.42.75... . Finally, the evident interpretation for researchers in these areas is that international cooperation will bring them publications of greater impact.

Additionally, it is highlighted that within the journals with the highest output of articles, there is a large proportion of publications that are in Scopus’ first quartile (Q1). The Journal of Ethnopharmacology was found to be the most used diffusion media by the researchers of the area. This journal is one of the few specialized in the publication of interdisciplinary research on ethnopharmacology, ethnobotany and ethnochemistry with the objective of documenting and preserving this knowledge ²⁵25. International Society for Ethnopharmacology. Journal of Ethnopharmacology [Internet]. Elsevier; 2019 [citado 10 enero 2020]. Disponible: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-ethnopharmacology.
https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journa... . Subsequently, the journals preferred by researchers to publish their findings were Revista Peruana de Biología of the UNMSM and Revista Peruana de Medicina Experimental y Salud Pública of the Instituto Nacional de Salud.

This situation reflects some of the usual circumstances in Latin American research groups, who seek to send their manuscripts not only to the best positioned journals, but also to those that offer open access options and no publication costs ²⁶26. Benedetti V, Echeverria G, Riquelme I. Biomedical research in Latin America: we can do more. The Lancet. 2016;387(10022):941. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(16)00567-5.
https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(16)00... ^,2727. Ciocca DR, Delgado G. The reality of scientific research in Latin America; an insider's perspective. Cell Stress and Chaperones. 2017;22(6):847-52. doi: 10.1007/s12192-017-0815-8.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12192-017-0815-... . However, these difficulties do not diminish the quality of the studies produced by Latin American researchers and, in this case by Peruvian institutions,since many of them have been published in Q1 journals that offer accessible publication costs or are accessible thanks to international cooperation ²⁸28. Wagner CS, Park HW, Leydesdorff L. The Continuing Growth of Global Cooperation Networks in Research: A Conundrum for National Governments. PLOS ONE. 2015;10(7):e0131816. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0131816.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.013... .

Among the most outstanding precedents, we found that Gonzáles Alonso et al. published a study that sought to determine the impact of scientific research on medicinal plants, published from 1947 to 2017, in Scopus ²⁹29. Alonso JAG, Saa MJM, Yugcha J del PH, Pilataxi RCM. Impacto de las publicaciones sobre plantas medicinales reportadas en Scopus. Rev Cubana Plant Med. 2018; [citado 10 enero 2020]. 22(3). Disponible en: http://www.revplantasmedicinales.sld.cu/index.php/pla/article/view/695.
http://www.revplantasmedicinales.sld.cu/... . However, in this study, a much more detailed search strategy was used and more accurate bibliometric indicators were obtained, which are more useful for decision making. Nonetheless, both studies coincide in the growing tendency of publications in recent years and the importance of international cooperation in the studies that finally get to be published in indexed magazines.

One of the biggest limitations of this study is that it only shows what has been published in a database relevant to the local sphere, but it does not cover the entire scientific output of Peru. For example, there are 12 health science journal titles indexed in SciELO Peru, and only 3 of them are included in this search because they are also indexed in Scopus. Likewise, the search for information does not include academic repositories, so the production of undergraduate and graduate theses is not being considered, which could have a significant impact on this area of knowledge, given that this study already evidences that universities are the most important centers for production of knowledge on Peruvian medicinal plants.

Other studies have highlighted that one of the most relevant difficulties for medicinal plants researchers is the dispersion of the necessary information to structure a coherent study in accordance with the current state of the art. However, Peru does not have a specialized repository to classify and preserve the scientific knowledge generated on medicinal plants, despite being a natural resource protected by the nation.

It is concluded that there is a growing trend in scientific research on medicinal plants with, at least, one author with Peruvian affiliation published between 2000 and 2019 in journals indexed in Scopus; this trend is mostly observed in university academic environments and the output is published in journals of diverse quartiles, including Q1, due, in part, to the high level of existing international cooperation.

References

Publication Dates

History