The Student-Authored Biomedical Publications at Alfaisal University, Saudi Arabia: a 6-year descriptive analysis

There are limited numbers of studies which comprehensively explored the research publications authored by medical students. To descriptively analyze the student-authored research publications originating from Alfaisal University-College of Medicine (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia) over a 6-year period. All student-authored research publications were retrieved from PubMed(®) and the College's publication database. Study inclusion criteria included: (1) at least one medical student author, (2) published and/or accepted in-press PubMed-indexed article from 10 September 2008 to 31 December 2014. Data was transferred to Microsoft Excel Software for descriptive statistical analysis of variable parameters. Seventy-three (n = 73) articles met the study inclusion criteria. They were published by 170 students; the majority were males (79.4 %) and clerkship students (65.9 %). There was a markedly steady increase in number of yearly publications from 1 publication in 2009 to 35 publications by the end of 2014. Fifty (68.5 %), twenty-nine (39.7 %) and thirty-seven (50.7 %) students were first, second and corresponding authors, respectively. The most frequent research areas were clinical science (43.8 %), basic science (23.3 %) and medical education (21.9 %). The most frequent research types were case reports (41.1 %), research articles (32.9 %) and correspondence letters (15.1 %). Fifty-seven (78.1 %) and sixteen (21.9 %) publications took place in local and abroad institutes, respectively. Most publications (71.2 %) had impact factors below 2. The mean ± SD of articles' impact factors and citations were 3.9 ± 9.9 and 1.9 ± 4.1, respectively. Students demonstrated positive attitudes towards publishing and significantly contributed to the institution's pool of research publications.