Pain research in Africa: a ten-year bibliometric survey

Over the years, a trend for very low numbers of scientific publications from Africa has emerged. There has been no evaluation of pain research publications from this region. This study was conducted to determine the African pain research spectrum over the last 10 years, to identify trends in the number of publications from different countries, to identify currently underexplored areas of pain research, and to stimulate renewed interest in quality pain research in Nigeria and Africa.

The English- and non-English-language medical literature on pain from July 2002 to May 2012 was studied using Medline, the Ovid database, and by performing hand searches of relevant references using Google. Publications on pain by Africans and/or non-Africans conducted in Africa on Africans living in Africa within the study period were included. The total number of articles per country, publication types, and impact factors of the respective journals were tabulated to determine the quantity and quality of research in this field.

Two hundred twenty-eight (228) articles from 25 African countries that were published in 129 different journals were identified. The majority were epidemiological studies (43.9 %), experimental studies (20.2 %), randomized controlled trials (2.2 %), and systematic reviews (1.8 %). Nigeria, South Africa, and Uganda topped the list of the most-published articles, with 76 (33.3 %), 71 (31.1 %), and 12 (5.3 %), respectively. The total number of journals with impact factors was 81, of which 29 were high-impact-factor journals.

Pain research publications from Africa should be encouraged. Given the underexplored frontiers of pain research, there is a need to engage in rigorous research in this field to enhance the contribution of the African continent ("the African Voice") to worldwide advances in this respect.