Autism Research in Iran: A Scientometric Study

Context:We aimed to conduct a scientometric study by investigating published papers of Iranian researchers on autistic disorders. Evidence Acquisition: We conducted a systematic review of the literature to retrieve all relevant studies on autism that are published by Iranian researchers. Seven databases were searched, of which three were local Iranian databases (Magiran, SID and Irandoc), and four were widely used English language databases (PubMed, Scopus, ProQuest and PsycInfo). Bibliometric information of all papers was extracted. Results: Two hundred and six (95 Persian and 111 English) papers published between 1979 and 2015 were retrieved. Comparison between subject areas showed that non-pharmacological intervention and biological studies had the largest number with 64 and 61 papers, respectively. Among universities, Tehran University of Medical Sciences with 81 articles was most productive, and among the research centers, psychiatry and psychology research center (Tehran University of Medical Sciences) with 32 articles was the most productive research center. Conclusions: The trends of research in the field of autism among Iranian researchers have the same patterns as the global trends. However, some important topics, such as prevalence, causes, services, and life span issues and the infrastructures have been studied less and should be considered in future studies. Moreover, it was revealed that we are faced with shortness of sources for research in this field, and the policy makers should consider this problem. We need to conduct researches that take into account our inner context, and the subject and quality of the research should be given more importance than the number.