PUBLICATION RATE OF SPECIALIZATION IN MEDICINE THESES IN MEDICAL ECOLOGY AND HYDROCLIMATOLOGY IN TURKEY: A CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY

Objective: To determine the conversion rate of specialization in medicine theses into full-text journal articles in medical ecology and hydroclimatology. Material and Method: National Thesis Center was searched using “Medical Ecology and Climatology” as the subject and “Specialization in Medicine” as the thesis type. The Web of Science, TR Dizin, Dergi Park, At？f Dizini, Pubmed, Google Scholar and Google databases were searched to identify the publications produced from theses. Results: A total of 24 theses were identified. The years of the theses ranged from 1980 to 2017. The 3 theses (20.00%) among the 15 theses between 1980 and 2002, and 4 (44.44%) theses among the 9 theses between 2009 and 2017 resulted in publication. Hence, overall, 7 (29.17%) out of 24 theses resulted in publication as a full-text article in a peer-reviewed journal. In all publications, the thesis author was the first author. Six theses were published in the journals indexed in Science Citation Index-Expanded (SCI-E). In these articles, the mean time to online publication was 3.00±1.83 years. Conclusion: A quarter of the theses in medical ecology and hydroclimatology specialty were published in SCI-E journals; however, the rate has nearly reached to the half of the theses in the last decade