International Collaboration in Taiwan Emergency Department Publications: A Social Network Analysis

BACKGROUND: Emergency medicine (EM) is a growing specialty both clinically and academically. Academic EM development can be measured by number of scientific publications. This study aimed to evaluate the academic international cooperation trend of Taiwan emergency departments (EDs) in the past two decades using social network analysis (SNA).

METHODS: The study population were publications with first author affiliated with Taiwan EDs and the study duration was publication year before 2021. The enrolled publications were categorized into two groups: Group one, all authors were affiliated with Taiwan (domestic publications) and Group two, authors were affiliated with Taiwan and other countries (international publications). The primary outcome measurement was the degree centrality of Taiwan before 2021. The secondary outcome measurements included the trend in annual publication number of Group one and Group two, the trend in country number of each year in Group two, the top five countries that collaborate with Taiwan, the difference between the median of citation numbers in Group one and Group two, and the difference between the median of author numbers in Group one and Group two.

RESULTS: A total 4,363 publications were enrolled, of which 4,046 publications were classified in Group one and 317 publications were in Group two. The annual publication number of both groups increased significantly. The annual country number of collaboration with Taiwan ED publications had also significantly increased. The median of citation number and author number in Group two were both significantly higher than Group one. The top five countries collaborating with Taiwan were the United States, China, Malaysia, Japan, and Australia.

CONCLUSIONS: Taiwan EDs' growing international collaboration in the past two decades indicated a capacity to conduct multi-country research. International collaboration publications obtained higher citations compared to domestic publications. Researchers should enhance international collaborations for academic advancement.