Bibliometric Analysis of Medical Malpractice Literature in Legal Medicine from 1975 to 2018: Web of Science Review

Gefei Shi; Ningguo Liu; Xiaotian Yu; Hui Zhang; Shiying Li; Shengnan Wu; Wenting Wang; Ping Huang; Chengtao Li

doi:10.1016/j.jflm.2019.07.002

Bibliometric Analysis of Medical Malpractice Literature in Legal Medicine from 1975 to 2018: Web of Science Review

J Forensic Leg Med. 2019 Aug:66:167-183. doi: 10.1016/j.jflm.2019.07.002. Epub 2019 Jul 12.

Authors

Gefei Shi¹, Ningguo Liu², Xiaotian Yu², Hui Zhang², Shiying Li², Shengnan Wu², Wenting Wang², Ping Huang³, Chengtao Li⁴

Affiliations

¹ Shanghai Key Laboratory of Forensic Medicine, Shanghai Forensic Service Platform, Academy of Forensic Science, 1347#, West Guangfu Road, Shanghai, 200063, China. Electronic address: shigf@ssfjd.cn.
² Shanghai Key Laboratory of Forensic Medicine, Shanghai Forensic Service Platform, Academy of Forensic Science, 1347#, West Guangfu Road, Shanghai, 200063, China.
³ Shanghai Key Laboratory of Forensic Medicine, Shanghai Forensic Service Platform, Academy of Forensic Science, 1347#, West Guangfu Road, Shanghai, 200063, China. Electronic address: huangp@ssfjd.cn.
⁴ Shanghai Key Laboratory of Forensic Medicine, Shanghai Forensic Service Platform, Academy of Forensic Science, 1347#, West Guangfu Road, Shanghai, 200063, China. Electronic address: lict@ssfjd.cn.

PMID: 31326692
DOI: 10.1016/j.jflm.2019.07.002

Abstract

Objective: To determine the history of malpractice literature using forensic science based on a bibliometric and graph theory.

Methods: Documented data were retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection of Clarivate Analytics on February 22, 2019. We selected articles for the years 1975-2018 from among documents concerning malpractice in the "Medicine, Legal" section and the Science Citation Index Expanded and the Social Sciences Citation Index. Descriptive statistics and co-occurrence analyses were performed using Microsoft Excel 2016, Gephi 0.9.2, and VOSviewer 1.6.10 software.

Results: In all, 379 papers and 3160 citing articles were retrieved. The most active publication year was 2013. Relative growth rate showed no malpractice explosion during the study period. Full articles comprised 83.11% of all papers. There were marked differences between the number of publications during the first 21 years and the last 23 years. More studies were published in the United States than in other countries and regions, but malpractice research has diminished during the most recent 3 years. Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics contributed the most to the field, with 51 documents. The journal with the highest impact factor, however, was Forensic Science International: Genetics. B. Madea topped the list of authors with the highest number of documents. Three clusters were identified, led by authors C. Terranova, B. Madea, and T.A. Brennan, respectively. The malpractice topics that received the most attention were malpractice claims, the types of malpractice, and the causes of medical malpractice. Our study of the citing papers also provided interesting results.

Conclusion: This bibliometric analysis indicated that studying the field of medical malpractice was poor during 1975-2018. United States was the most prolific country, and B. Madea published more documents in the field. The studies in Medicine, Legal mostly focused on the claims, appraisement methods, and causes of medical malpractice. In the future, forensic scientists should pay more attention to medical malpractice.

Keywords: Bibliometric; Forensic science; Gephi; Malpractice; VOSviewer; Web of Science.

Publication types

Review

MeSH terms

Bibliometrics*
Forensic Sciences*
Humans
Malpractice*
Publishing / statistics & numerical data*