Bibliometric Analysis of Medical Specialization Theses in Family Medicine: Pandemic Effect

Aim: This study aims to investigate the changes in topics and methodologies of family medicine specialization theses before and during the pandemic. Method: This observational, descriptive, and retrospective study evaluated the family medicine speciality theses published between 2018 and 2022. 2021 and 2022 were considered as during the pandemic and 2018-2020 as before the pandemic; thesis topics were classified according to the International Classification of Primary Care, 2nd edition, by the 32-variable Thesis Information Form. The data were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, v21.0. Armonk, NY: IBM Corp. A value of p<0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: Five hundred sixty-four theses were written before the pandemic and 448 were written during the pandemic. A statistically significant difference was observed between before the pandemic and during the pandemic regarding several variables: gender, relation to COVID-19, supervisor title, research location, research type, funding, using questionnaires, and provision of medicine therapy. Among the topics, International Classification of Primary Care, 2nd edition A (General and nonspecific topics) was the most frequently examined during the pandemic (n=114, 25.4%), compared to before the pandemic. The questionnaires became more common during the pandemic, particularly online via email and social media platforms. There was a notable rise in the number of theses focusing on respiratory tract infectionsand the novel coronavirus. All these studies were approved by the ethics committee. Conclusion: This study indicated that family medicine specialty theses and training were affected by the pandemic. The observational and descriptive studies were the most common, accompanied by changes in supervisor titles and a reduction in financial support during the pandemic.