Research on Nigella sativa: A Scientometric Assessment of Global Publications’ Output during 1989–2018

Aim: The present study aimed to perform scientometric assessment of global publications’ output of research on Nigella sativa during 1989–2018. Materials and Methods: The present study examined 3718 global publications on N. sativa, as indexed and covered in international Scopus database during 1989–2018, with a view to understand their growth rate, global publication share, citation impact, international collaborative papers’ share, distribution of publications by broad subjects, productivity and citation profile of top organizations and authors, preferred media of communication, and bibliographic characteristics of highly cited papers. The global publications on N. sativa registered 20.87% annual average growth rate, and its citation impact averaged to 19.08 citations per paper. Results: The global share of top ten countries on N. sativa ranged from 3.15% to 23.91%, with the largest share (23.91%) from India, followed by Iran (9.58%), Egypt (9.06%), the USA (7.15%), etc., Nearly 81.31% and 75.74% of the global publication and citation share came from the top 10 countries during 1989–2018. The cumulative global share of the top 10 countries increased from 70.56% to 82.58% from 1989–2003 to 2004–2018. Five countries registered relative citation index above the world average of 0.93 as follows: Germany (1.86), the USA (1.54), Turkey (1.33), Saudi Arabia (1.16), and Egypt (0.94) during 1989–2018. Pharmacology, toxicology, and pharmaceutics contributed the largest global publication share of 33.97%, followed by agricultural and biological sciences (32.92%); medicine (30.10%); biochemistry, genetics, and molecular biology (24.74%); chemistry (12.40%); immunology and microbiology (6.97%); environmental science (5.38%); and veterinary science (3.60%) during 1989–2018. A total of 432 organizations and 642 authors participated in the global research on N. sativa during 1989–2018, of which the top 15 most productive research organizations and the authors collectively contributed 23.45% and 6.64% of the global publication share and 21.82% and 8.04% of the global citation share, respectively, during 1989–2018. Among 3655 journal papers (in 364 journals) in global N. sativa research, the top 15 most productive journals together contributed 13.54% of global share of the total journal publication output during 1989–2018. Conclusion: One hundred and twenty‑six publications were found to be highly cited, as they registered citations from 100 to 2971 during 1989–2018 and they together received 23,426 citations, averaging to 185.92 citations per paper.