A bibliometric analysis of biochemistry theses in Türkiye: Comparison with global trends

Objectives: This study aims to examine the trends and distribution of research areas and methodologies in biochemistry theses over time by performing a bibliometric analysis in the CoHE database and comparing them with PubMed trends. Methods: The study includes biochemistry theses from Türkiye spanning 1969 to 2023, totalling 5,543 theses in the CoHe database. Also, the PubMed database is used to compare the world's and our country's scientific trends. Google Sheets, AppSheets and Python are used for data analysis. The study employed various bibliometric techniques like performance analysis, cluster analysis, science mapping and co-occurrence analysis. Results: Although several diseases exhibited insignificant associations, pregnancy demonstrated a significant positive correlation between CoHE and PubMed trends (ρ=0.455, p=0.0022). The noted negative associations for atherosclerosis (ρ = -0.429, p=0.0041) and hypertension (ρ = -0.470, p=0.0015) suggest that national trends in thesis production differ from international publication trends for these conditions. Furthermore, oxidant-antioxidant system studies at CoHe have held the first place for over 30 years, despite being decreasing after the 2000s and having a positive but statistically irrelevant connection with global trends (ρ=0.100; p=0.873). Conclusions: We propose that biochemistry studies should prioritise diseases such as atherosclerosis and osteoarthritis in parallel with the findings in our work, particularly considering increasing life expectancy. Moreover, placing increased focus on microbiota studies and the utilisation of animal models within research methodologies will be crucial for advancing our understanding in the field.