Bibliometric and Scientometric Analysis of the Articles Published in the Journal of Religion and Health Between 1975 and 2016

Abstract

Bibliometrics and scientometrics are novel closely related scientific fields measuring and analyzing scientific publications in a certain area. Although spirituality, religion and health (S/R&H) field has been a growing study area in recent years, only a few bibliometric studies have been conducted on published literature in S/R&H. In this study, we aimed to perform bibliometric and scientometric analysis of the documents published in the Journal of Religion and Health, which is one of the most significant and productive journals in spirituality, religion and health field, during the period of 1975 to 2016. We used Thomson Reuters Web of Science database for the publication analyses. A total of 2683 papers were found and most of them were original articles (1655, 62.1%) followed by book reviews (780, 29.3%) and editorial materials (169, 6.3%). We found that the USA was the most productive country with 1665 papers and 62.45% of total literature followed by Australia and Canada. Cornell University in the USA was found to publish the highest number of documents with 73 papers and to cover 2.74% of the total literature followed by Duke University and Weill Cornell Medical College. A total of 2973 keywords were detected to be used. Most used five keywords were “religion,” “spirituality,” “religiosity,” “health” and “mental health” (n = 253, 250, 97, 71 and 41 times, respectively). Our bibliometric and scientometric study of one of the most important leading journals in S/R&H area may encourage researchers to carry out further studies in this field. © 2018, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.