Co-Authorship and Main Subjects in Articles of Medical-Scientific Journal of Ahwaz University of Medical Sciences

Introduction: Quantitative study of journal articles as an indicator of informatics and bibliometric activities, gives an estimate of how effectively that journal disseminates information. The purpose of this study was to determine the rate of collaboration along with main subjects in the articles published in the Medical Scientific Journal of Ahwaz University of Medical Sciences.
Methods: Using a cross-sectional design, we quantitatively studied co-authorship rate and among authors of the articles published in the Medical Scientific Journal of Ahwaz University of Medical Sciences. We also assessed diversity of main subjects in a period from 1986 to 2006.
Results: Our findings indicated that the contribution rate for women in writing articles of the studied journal is less than for men. Collaboration has been mostly in the form of two authors. Also, tendency towards collaboration among authors showed a gradual increase during the study period. Collaboration ratio among authors was 4%, indicating average group cooperation. In terms of subject diversity, "pediatrics", "physiology" and "pharmacy" were most commonly used, while other subjects including "pathology", "chronic disease" and "the aged" and "hospital" were not covered at all.
Conclusion: This study demonstrates that the rate of collaboration among women in writing articles published in the studied journal is one-forth of men. Articles are mostly written by two authors. Moreover, distribution of the published articles subjects was not balanced in accordance with subject coverage of the journal. Some subjects were considered less and some were totally neglected.
Keywords: Periodicals; Library and Information Science; Authorship