Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis of Medical Students' Research Output in Five Developing Countries

Objectives The purpose of this analysis was to investigate the quantity and quality of medical students' research output in Gulf Cooperation Council countries to aid in developing strategies to improve research output. Methods Abstracts presented by medical students in Gulf Cooperation Council countries were subject to analysis. Abstracts that propagated into full-length articles underwent further demographic analysis, in which data regarding the type of study, the field of study, country of origin, mode of presentation, and journal's impact factor were collected. A total of 798 abstracts were surveyed, with 19% (n=155) of the abstracts submitted by Gulf Cooperation Council countries progressing into full-length publications. The average impact factor for Gulf Cooperation Council country publications was found to be 1.85 ± 0.26 (standard error). Countries that recorded the highest conversion rates were, in descending order, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Bahrain, and Kuwait. Moreover, basic biomedical and clinical research topics were more likely to be published in comparison with community-oriented and medical education-related topics. Conclusions Effective efforts to encourage more medical student research output in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries (with a focus on qualitative analysis) should be promoted in order to achieve publication rates comparable with those reported by developed countries.