Scientific publications on systematic review and meta-analysis from Chinese authors: a 10-year survey of the English literature.

Systematic reviews and meta-analyses are playing an increasingly important role in clinical research and practice. This study aimed to measure the scientific production of systematic review and meta-analysis from the three major regions of China: the Mainland (ML), Hong Kong (HK), and Taiwan (TW). English articles on systematic review and meta-analysis from ML, HK, and TW from 2001 to 2010 were retrieved from the PubMed database. The total number of articles, impact factors (IF), and articles published in high-impact journals were conducted for quantity and quality comparisons among the three regions. There were 1 587 published articles from ML (1 292), HK (203), and TW (92) during the past ten years. The annual total numbers of articles in the three regions increased significantly from 2001 to 2010 (from 13 to 677). The number of articles from ML has exceeded that from TW since 2001, and surpassed that from HK in 2003. The accumulated IF of articles from ML (3 488.24) was higher than those from HK (493.16) and TW (216.39). HK had the highest average IF of 3.31, followed by ML of 2.90 and TW of 2.85. Researchers from HK published a larger proportion of papers in high-impact journals than those from ML and TW. The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews was the most popular journal in China. Chinese authors have been very active to enhance the systematic review and meta-analysis research over the past ten years, especially in ML. The gap between ML and the other two regions has been narrowed. But there is still considerable room for Chinese authors to improve their studies on systematic review and meta-analysis.