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Inicio Enfermedades Infecciosas y Microbiología Clínica (English Edition) Bibliometric and thematic characterization of the research on HIV–AIDS in Spai...
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Vol. 41. Núm. 9.
Páginas 535-544 (noviembre 2023)
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Vol. 41. Núm. 9.
Páginas 535-544 (noviembre 2023)
Original article
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Bibliometric and thematic characterization of the research on HIV–AIDS in Spain (2010–2019)
Caracterización bibliométrica y temática de la investigación sobre VIH-sida en España (2010–2019)
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Gregorio González-Alcaidea,
Autor para correspondencia
gregorio.gonzalez@uv.es

Corresponding author.
, Marouane Menchi-Elanzib, Máxima Bolaños-Pizarroa, Félix Gutiérrez-Roderoc,d,e, José-Manuel Ramos-Rincónb,d
a Departamento de Historia de la Ciencia y Documentación, Universitat de València, Valencia, Spain
b Departamento de Medicina Interna, Hospital General Universitario de Alicante, Alicante, Spain
c Unidad de Enfermedades Infecciosas, Hospital General Universitario de Elche, Elche, Alicante, Spain
d Departamento de Medicina Clínica, Universidad Miguel Hernández de Elche, Sant Joan d’Alacant, Alicante, Spain
e Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Enfermedades Infecciosas (CIBERINFEC), Madrid, Spain
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Table 1. Scientific output and international collaboration on HIV–AIDS in Spain (2010–2019).
Table 2. Distribution by journal of publication by and participation of the RIS in the scientific output on HIV–AIDS in Spain (2000–2019).
Table 3. Participation of institutions (>99 documents) in the scientific output on HIV–AIDS in Spain (2010-2019).
Table 4. Activity and scientific output of the RIS groups in the Web of Science (2010–2019).
Table A1. Number of documents published on HIV–AIDS in Spain (2010–2019) distributed according to the thematic affiliation of the publication journals.
Table A2. Distribution of the number of authors with the number of documents in Spanish research on HIV–AIDS (2010–2019).
Table A3. Distribution of the research into the scientific activity and citation according to the orientation of the research by the RIS groups (2010–2019).
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Abstract
Introduction

The establishment of the Spanish AIDS Research Network (RIS) was a milestone for the promotion of HIV research in Spain. We analyse Spanish HIV research, assessing the role that RIS has played in it.

Methods

We identified publications on HIV–AIDS with the participation of Spanish institutions in the Web of Science over the period 2010–2019, characterising research activity by means of bibliometrics and identifying the thematic areas of research through a cluster analysis.

Results

A total of 3960 documents have been identified (average of 396 documents/year), 42% of which have been signed in international collaboration. RIS researchers have participated in 60% of the documents, presenting a scientific production and citation significantly higher than authors not linked to the RIS. Five thematic clusters articulate the research, focusing on the clinical and therapeutic approach to people living with HIV, co-infection and co-morbidity with other diseases, the genetic characterisation of the virus, the development of vaccines and the study of its transmission in specific groups or associated with sexual behaviour.

Conclusion

Spanish HIV research, largely driven by RIS groups, has reached a stage of maturity, with a notable increase in scientific production, participation in international cooperative networks and an outstanding impact and visibility.

Keywords:
Bibliometrics
HIV
Acquired Immunodeficiency syndrome
Spanish AIDS Research Network (RIS)
Research
Spain
Resumen
Introducción

La constitución de la Red de Investigación en Sida (RIS) constituyó un hito para el impulso de la investigación sobre el VIH en España. Se analiza la investigación española en el área, evaluando específicamente el papel que ha desempeñado la RIS en la misma.

Métodos

Se identificaron las publicaciones sobre VIH-sida con la participación de instituciones españolas en la Web of Science a lo largo del período 2010–2019, caracterizando bibliométricamente la actividad investigadora e identificando mediante un análisis de clústeres los ámbitos temáticos de investigación.

Resultados

Se han identificado 3.960 documentos (promedio de 396 documentos/año), el 42% de los cuales han sido firmados en colaboración internacional. Los investigadores de la RIS han participado en el 60% de los documentos, presentando una producción científica y citación sensiblemente superior a los autores no vinculados a la misma. Cinco clústeres temáticos articulan la investigación, centrados en el abordaje clínico y terapéutico de las personas que viven con el VIH, la coinfección y la comorbilidad con otras enfermedades, la caracterización genética del virus, el desarrollo de vacunas y el estudio de su transmisión en colectivos específicos o asociado a las conductas sexuales.

Conclusión

La investigación española sobre el VIH, impulsada en gran medida por los grupos de la RIS ha alcanzado un estadio de madurez, con un notable incremento de la producción científica, la participación en redes cooperativas internacionales y un destacado impacto y visibilidad.

Palabras clave:
Bibliometría
VIH
Síndrome de Inmunodeficiencia Adquirida
Red de Investigación del SIDA (RIS)
Investigación
España
Texto completo
Introduction

Research on HIV–AIDS in Spain has addressed different challenges since the discovery of the virus in the 1980s. These have been centred around controlling the epidemic and improving the health of people living with HIV, focusing on areas such as prevention, early detection and how to approach the disease clinically.1 Spanish research groups also carried out important work in the field of basic research to determine the genetic bases of the virus and its incidence, to contribute to the development of treatments and the creation of a vaccine while increasingly becoming integrated and connected with other international groups and networks in this area.2

Three creditable milestones marked the development of the research: a) the creation in 1997 of the Sociedad Española de Enfermedades Infecciosas y Microbiología Clínica [Spanish Society of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology] Grupo de Estudio de Sida (GeSIDA) [AIDS Study Group], which became an important reference for the promotion of research; b) the creation in 1999 of the Fundación para la Investigación y Prevención del Sida en España (FIPSE) [Foundation for AIDS Research and Prevention in Spain], which was the first specific funding agency for research in the area; and c) the creation in 2003 of the Redes Temáticas de Investigación Cooperativa (RETIC) [Thematic Networks on Collaborative Research], which enabled the setting up of the Red de Investigación en Sida (RIS) [AIDS Research Network].2 The RIS has established itself as a major international benchmark, with a growing presence in large worldwide research consortiums, in parallel with the excellence of the research carried out by its groups.1

There is extensive bibliometric literature analysing research on HIV, both worldwide,3–6 and on the scale of geographic areas7–9 or countries.10–12 More specifically, there are articles which analyse the extension of collaborative practices and scientific collaboration networks,13,14 identification of the thematic hubs of the most cited documents or research fronts in the area15 or the literature focusing on social, psycho-social or economic aspects, such as the stigmatisation and discrimination of people living with HIV,16 intervention programmes centred around children with HIV–AIDS17 or its incidence in demographic terms, or the impact of the financial resources dedicated to the research.18

Different bibliometric studies have also analysed the research on HIV–AIDS carried out in Spain,19–22 although they do not include the most recent research generated after the creation of the RIS. At an international level, only a small number of studies analysed scientific activity linked to the formal research networks created to promote research on HIV, despite the essential role they acquired as organisations setting the thematic lines for research and as instruments for organising interaction and collaborative practices among researchers. One of these studies, by Rosas et al.23 analysed the publications generated by the different networks or research groups concerning clinical trials on HIV/AIDS linked to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in the period 2006–2008, concluding that their recognition and impact were outstanding and they involved a significant amount of interdisciplinary collaboration. Another was the contribution from Nye et al.24 who conducted an overall evaluation of the production, influence and collaboration involved in the scientific output of the HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN) in relation to worldwide research on HIV vaccines. They remarked on the progressive growth in the network's scientific output, particularly the greater productivity of the researchers linked to it, more widespread collaborative practices, an impressive number of authors occupying leading positions in the network of scientific co-authors, and a significantly higher degree of citation and visibility of publications in relation to the rest of the scientific output in the area.

The aim of this study is to analyse Spanish research on HIV–AIDS, specifically characterising the contribution of the RIS. We aim to answer the following questions:

  • -

    What weight does the research that RIS researchers participated in carry in relation to all Spanish research generated in this area of knowledge, and how has it evolved?

  • -

    To what extent can being part of the RIS be associated with better scientific performance?

  • -

    What role do RIS researchers play in the co-authorship network and in relation to international collaboration?

Methods

The methodological process followed to address our objective and answer the research questions raised was as follows:

Identification of Spanish scientific output on HIV

To identify the document population under study, we opted to conduct a search taking the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) thesaurus as a reference, as this controlled vocabulary tool enables accurate identification of documents in the area being analysed. The search was carried out using the databases of the Clarivate Analytics Web of Science (WoS) Core Collection, as this source has a record of all the institutional affiliations of the authors, as well as the citations of the documents, and is linked to the data on the impact and visibility of the journals the articles are published in from the ranking listed in the Journal Citation Reports.

The search equation was defined as follows:

MeSH:EXPLODE: HIV OR HIV Infections OR Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome OR AIDS Vaccines AND Address: Spain.

Subsequently, the results were limited to the article and review document types and the chronological period 2010–2019.

Review of the homogeneity and quality of the data and determination of the scientific output of the RIS

To ensure the data were representative, we manually checked the forms of authorship identification, correcting any problems detected, such as the different degrees of information provided (one or two surnames or initials of first names), typing errors or homonyms. We also checked the institutional affiliations to unify the different variants with which the same institution is identified and individualise the instances included in this bibliographic field, as it is very common for two or more institutions which are entities in their own right to be included under one signature. In these cases, a full assignation was made, duplicating the signatures, for example, in the case of research institutes linked to hospitals, which may give an impression of redundancy in the results, but which we consider necessary in order not to lose relevant information on affiliations which have been recorded by the authors of the publications and which are sometimes presented under one single signature.

To measure the scientific output linked to the RIS, we identified the members of the network’s research groups appearing on its website in September 2021 (https://redris.es), also including in our analysis certain groups which were part of the RIS throughout the period analysed. They have been linked with the authorship of the WoS scientific publications below.

Calculation of indicators and interpretation of resultsBibliometric characterisation of Spanish research on HIV–AIDSScientific collaboration and output

To provide an overview of the research activity generated on HIV–AIDS in Spain throughout the period analysed and of scientific collaboration in the area, we calculated the following indicators:

  • -

    Number of documents published per year.

  • -

    Distribution of the number of documents published among the different scientific agents: authors, institutions, journals and thematic categories or areas of knowledge in which the manuscripts have been published.

  • -

    Transience rate. Refers to the percentage of authors with one single publication. Different studies have taken this indicator, related to the distribution of productivity, as a reference to analyse the degree of consolidation of a research community, depending on the greater or lesser proportion of “transient” authors.25

  • -

    Average number of authors per document.

  • -

    Number of documents in national and international collaboration.

Impact and visibility

The evaluation of the scientific performance of the research activity was based on document citation indicators and indicators of visibility in terms of the journal or sources in which the studies were published:

  • -

    Number of citations received by the documents grouped by thematic category and journal.

  • -

    Average citations per document.

  • -

    Impact Factor and Journal Citation Indicator (JCI) of the publishing journals. The JCI is a normalised impact measure of the citations received by a journal’s articles and reviews in its thematic category. The average value is 1, so a journal with a JCI higher than 1 has a citation impact above the average for its category.

  • -

    Relative position of the journals in their thematic categories and distribution by quartiles in relation to the Impact Factor and the JCI. The 2020 ranking on the Clarivate Analytics WoS platform has been taken as a reference for this.

Scientific performance and output of the RIS groups

To specifically analyse the production and impact of the RIS, we present the above indicators referring to the subset of documents in which the researchers linked to this network participated, in addition to carrying out a detailed analysis of the activity carried out by these groups:

  • -

    Number of documents.

  • -

    Number of citations.

  • -

    Average citations/document.

  • -

    h-Index

A co-authorship network was generated, identifying the collaboration links established between the most productive authors (>9 documents) and those with a greater degree of collaboration with other researchers (>9 documents) to analyse the positioning of the RIS researchers. We calculated a measure of centrality (the degree of intermediation), also estimating the scientific output and the citations of the researchers in the above network.

Research thematic clusters

Lastly, we characterised the thematic areas addressed by the Spanish research on HIV–AIDS, generating a matrix with the co-occurrence of the MeSH descriptors assigned to the documents, on which we applied a cluster analysis to identify the different thematic lines and their visual representation.

To generate the network of topics, a process to homogenise the terminology was unnecessary, as we used the descriptors of the MeSH thesaurus. However, to help identify the clusters and optimal visualisation of the network, reducing the high density of links between the descriptors, we “pruned” excessively generic descriptors, such as those used in the search process, those referring to gender and age groups. The information provided by these descriptors was specifically analysed.

For the generation of the co-authorship network and the calculation of the intermediation of the researchers, we used the Pajek program, and the determination and representation of the thematic research clusters were carried out with VOSViewer.

ResultsSpanish scientific output on HIV

We identified 3960 documents, with a stable scientific output of around 300–450 published documents per year (Table 1). Twenty-one thematic categories had documents making up more than 1%, including infectious diseases, with 46.04% of the documents and another five categories accounting for 15%–25% (immunology, virology, microbiology, pharmacology and pharmacy and multidisciplinary sciences). Although the disciplines related to basic research have a higher citation count, it should be noted that the publications of the different groups and researchers on HIV in general and internal medicine journals are those with the higher average number of citations per article (Appendix Table A1).

Table 1.

Scientific output and international collaboration on HIV–AIDS in Spain (2010–2019).

Year  Number of documents  Number of documents in international collaboration  Percentage 
2010  380  133  35 
2011  450  166  36.89 
2012  425  157  36.94 
2013  411  160  38.93 
2014  429  155  36.13 
2015  444  197  44.37 
2016  370  180  48.65 
2017  390  187  47.95 
2018  308  152  49.35 
2019  353  178  50.42 
Total  3960  1665  42.04 

The multidisciplinary journal PLoS One published the largest number of documents. However, different journals specialising in HIV/AIDS were also among the most productive journals (such as AIDS, HIV Medicine, JAIDS: Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes and Aids Research and Human Retroviruses), in addition to the Spanish journals Enfermedades Infecciosas y Microbiología Clínica [Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology] and Medicina Clínica [Clinical Medicine]. It is also worth noting the presence in the ranking of the most productive journals of one specialised in reviews (AIDS reviews) and another in clinical trials (HIV Clinical Trials). Among the journals with the highest productivity, six stand out with a JCI higher than one, and eight are positioned in the first quartile of their thematic categories (Table 2).

Table 2.

Distribution by journal of publication by and participation of the RIS in the scientific output on HIV–AIDS in Spain (2000–2019).

Journal  Number of documents  Percentage  Number of RIS documents  Percentage  Impact Factor (2020)  JCI (2020)  Position-ranking Impact Factor  Position-JCI 
PLoS One  281  7.10  205  72.95  3240  0.57  26/72-multi-Q2  29/128 Q1 
AIDS  267  6.74  213  79.77  4.177  1.09  32/93-ID-Q2  26/118-ID-Q1 
              Immunology 84/62 Q3  Immunology 41/177 Q1 
              Virology 14/67 Q2  Virology 9/39 Q1 
Enfermedades Infecciosas y Microbiología Clínica  210  5.30  115  54.76  1.731  0.45  82/93-ID-Q4  83/118-ID-Q3 
              Microbiology 124/136 Q4  Microbiology 120/151 Q4 
Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy  148  3.74  124  83.78  5.790  1.51  14/93-ID-Q1  8/118-ID-Q1 
              Microbiology 26/136 Q1  Microbiology 16/151 Q1 
              P&P 43/276 Q1  P&P 25/357 Q1 
HIV Medicine  138  3.48  107  77.54  3.180  0.97  54/93-ID-Q3  35/118-ID-Q2 
JAIDS: Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes  125  3.16  101  80.80  3.731  0.94  40/93-ID-Q2  39/118-ID-Q2 
              Immunology 95/162 Q3  Immunology 56/177 Q2 
Clinical Infectious Diseases  100  2.53  77  77.00  9.079  2.13  3/93-ID-Q1  3/118-ID-Q1 
              Microbiology 18/162 Q1  Microbiology 11/177 Q1 
              Immunology 12/136 Q1  Immunology 7/151 Q1 
Aids Research and Human Retroviruses  90  2.27  72  80.00  2.205  0.52  75/93-ID-Q4  78/118-ID-Q3 
              Virology 31/37 Q4  Virology 32/39 Q4 
              Immunology 142/162 Q4  Immunology 134/177 Q4 
Antiviral Therapy  83  2.10  70  84.34  2.400  0.64  70/93-ID-Q4  68/118-ID-Q3 
              P&P 204/276 Q3  P&P 195/357 Q3 
              Virology 27/37 Q3  Virology 24/39 Q3 
AIDS Reviews  72  1.82  53  73.61  2.500  0.37  67/93-ID-Q3  94/118-ID-Q4 
              Immunology 131/162 Q4  Immunology 150/177Q4 
Journal of Virology  72  1.82  58  80.56  5.103  1.24  9/37-Virology-Q1  7/39 Q1 
Journal of Infectious Diseases  58  1.46  41  65.52  5.226  1.40  18/93-ID-Q1  13/118-ID-Q1 
              Immunology 56/162 Q2  Immunology 29/177 Q1 
              Microbiology 38/136 Q2  Microbiology 18/151 Q1 
Antiviral Research  57  1.44  42  73.68  5.970  1.49  8/37-Virology-Q1  6/39 Virology-Q1 
              P&P 35/276 Q1  P&P 26/357Q1 
BMC Infectious Diseases  51  1.29  34  66.67  3.090  0.82  57/93-ID-Q3  50/118-ID-Q2 
Medicina Clinica  48  1.21  17  35.42  1.725  0.40  105/167-General and Internal Medicine-Q3  131/315-Q2 
HIV Clinical Trials  45  1.14  33  73.33  1.821  N/A  75/92-ID-Q4-2019  N/A 
              P&P 210/271 Q4-2019   
Scientific Reports  41  1.04  27  65.85  4.380  0.80  17/72-multi-Q1  19/128 Q1 
Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal  41  1.04  24  58.54  2.129  0.73  79/93-ID-Q4  59/118-ID-Q2 
              Paediatrics 69/129 Q3  Paediatrics 76/177 Q2 
              Immunology 143/162 Q4  Immunology 85/177 Q2 

ID: Infectious Diseases; JCI: Journal Citation Indicator; Multi: multidisciplinary; P&P: Pharmacology & Pharmacy; RIS: Red de Investigación en Sida [AIDS Research Network]; HIV: human immunodeficiency virus.

Authorships and international collaboration

We identified 15,703 authors, 323 of whom were linked to the RIS. The rate of transience among the authors was found to be 64.56% (n = 10,140). Of the 753 authors with the highest scientific output (>9 documents), 186 are from the RIS. Appendix Table A2 shows the distribution of the authors by productivity thresholds. The high productivity of all the authors linked to the RIS is notable, as 57.58% (n = 186) had published more than nine documents. These authors also have a much higher average number of published documents (41.56) than the large producers (>9 documents) not linked to the RIS (15.37).

Regarding collaboration, the average number of authors per document stood at 11.29 ± 17.8, but this rose from 9.74 ± 14.62 to ±14.62 in the period 2010–2014 to 13.04 ± 20.67 in 2015−2019. These figures show a considerable increase in the number of multi-author papers involving a very large number of authors; for example, papers with more than 20 authors represented 4.5% of the documents in the period 2010–2014 (n = 95), but 10.72% of the documents from 2015 to 2019 (n = 200). Table 3 shows the list with the most productive institutions (>100 documents). The proportion of documents in international collaboration climbed from 35% of the total in 2010 to 50.42% in 2019 (Table 1).

Table 3.

Participation of institutions (>99 documents) in the scientific output on HIV–AIDS in Spain (2010-2019).

Institutional affiliation  Number of documents  h-Index  Number of citations  Average citations/document 
Univ Autònoma de Barcelona.  669  46  11,142  16.65 
Univ. de Barcelona  638  45  11,181  17.53 
HC de Barcelona  628  48  11,143  17.74 
HU Germans Trias i Pujol  623  50  11,973  19.22 
Instituto de Salud Carlos III  502  38  6807  13.56 
IrsiCaixa: Institut de Recerca de la Sida  475  49  10,589  22.29 
HGU Gregorio Marañón  416  31  5248  12.62 
HU Ramon y Cajal  385  32  5056  13.13 
Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer  365  35  6169  16.90 
HU La Paz  331  36  5764  17.41 
CIBER de Epidemiología y Salud Pública  274  25  3243  11.84 
H Carlos IIIa  254  36  5812  22.88 
Univ. College Londonb  232  42  8018  34.56 
HU Vall d’Hebron  223  25  2894  12.98 
Fundació Lluita Contra la Sida  215  29  3595  16.72 
HU 12 de Octubre  214  27  3110  14.53 
H de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau  207  25  3043  14.70 
HU Virgen del Rocío  194  25  2406  12.40 
HU Virgen de Valme  186  19  1782  9.58 
HU de Bellvitge  183  26  3088  16.87 
Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats  178  35  4638  26.06 
Univ de Vic - Univ Central de Catalunya  166  22  1998  12.04 
Instituto Ramón y Cajal de Investigación Sanitaria  160  20  1755  10.97 
HC San Carlos  143  21  1757  12.29 
Instituto de Biomedicina de Sevilla  141  19  1378  9.77 
Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria del Hospital Universitario La Paz  140  26  2612  18.66 
Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria Gregorio Marañón  137  21  1271  9.28 
Univ Sevilla  127  20  1515  11.93 
HU Reina Sofia  124  21  1611  12.99 
Univ Complutense de Madrid  119  19  1554  13.06 
Centre de Recerca en Salut Internacional de Barcelona  117  20  1771  15.14 
Univ Autónoma de Madrid  116  19  1268  10.93 
HU Virgen de la Victoria  116  15  939  8.09 
HU y Politécnico de La Fe  112  22  1602  14.30 
Copenhagen Univb  111  28  4162  37.50 
Institut d’Investigació en Ciències de la Salut Germans Trias i Pujol  109  20  1447  13.28 
HU de Donostia  105  18  1076  10.25 
Univ Miguel Hernández de Elche  105  21  1988  18.93 
Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas  105  24  2066  19.68 
Amsterdam Univ  104  32  4503  43.30 
HGU de Elche  103  24  2223  21.58 
Univ Alcalá de Henares  102  20  1426  13.98 

H: hospital; HC: clinical hospital; HGU: university general hospital; HU: university hospital; Univ: university.

a

Although it has formed part of HU La Paz since 2013, this institution has kept its separate status, insofar as it continues to be listed as an institutional affiliation in scientific publications.

b

Foreign institutions appear in the table because authors from them have frequently collaborated with authors from Spanish institutions.

Participation of the RIS in Spanish research on HIV

The 38 research groups in the RIS analysed are divided into 19 groups linked to basic research, 21 to clinical research and another 18 groups which carry out epidemiological research. However, it should be noted that many groups participate simultaneously in more than one type of research (Appendix Table A3). Overall, RIS researchers participated in 60.43% (n = 2393) of the Spanish scientific output on HIV, with a slightly higher average number of citations per document (15.92 compared to 14.15 for scientific output not linked to these groups) and with a lower rate of uncited documents (only 7.19% of the documents compared to 13.34% for scientific output with no RIS researcher participation).

The rate of participation of RIS researchers in the most productive journals with high impact and visibility is, in almost all cases, well above the overall participation of all researchers in the scientific output analysed (Table 2).

Although, in general, basic research is ranked with the highest output and citation values, it should be noted that the groups whose research can be defined as crossover (basic and clinical/epidemiological or clinical and epidemiological) have a higher citation count than groups specialising in one single type of research (Appendix Table A3).

Two groups with high productivity and citation counts stand out significantly above the rest (with an average of 19–21 citations per document and h-indexes of 45–48), followed by another 17 groups with more than 100 published documents and also a very high citation count (Table 4).

Table 4.

Activity and scientific output of the RIS groups in the Web of Science (2010–2019).

RIS groupa  Type of research  Number of documents  Number of citations  Average citations/document  h-Index 
Groups from IrsiCaixa Instituto de Investigación del sida  Basic  489  10,200  20.86  48 
Hospital Clínic-IDIBAPS  Basic/clinical  489  9312  19.04  45 
Hospital Universitario Ramón y Cajal, Infectious Diseases Department  Basic/clinical  289  4386  15.18  32 
Instituto de Investigación del Hospital Sanitario La Paz (IdiPAZ), HIV Unit  Basic/clinical  155  3784  24.41  32 
Hospital General Universitario de Elche  Clinical/epidemiology  150  2868  19.12  27 
Hospital Universitario 12 de Octubre, Virology-HIV/AIDS Research Group  Basic/clinical  184  2703  14.69  26 
Hospital General Universitario Gregorio Marañón, HIV BioBank  Basic  191  2553  13.37  25 
Hospital Universitario Vall d'Hebron, HIV/AIDS Research Unit  Basic/clinical  181  2633  14.55  25 
Hospital Universitario Ramón y Cajal, Infectious Diseases Department, HIV and STD Unit  Clinical/epidemiology  157  2820  17.96  25 
Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria Galicia Sur  Clinical/epidemiology  190  2251  11.85  24 
Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau Research Institute, HIV and AIDS Research Group  Basic/clinical  186  2848  15.31  24 
Centro Nacional de Epidemiología (ISCIII)/Centro Sanitario Sandoval, AIDS Research Network Cohort Unit (CoRIS)  Clinical/epidemiology  151  2065  13.67  24 
Hospital General Universitario Gregorio Marañón, Clinical and Epidemiological Aspects of HIV and Associated Conditions Group  Basic/clinical  215  2340  10.88  23 
Hospital Universitario Reina Sofía, Infectious Diseases Unit  Clinical/epidemiology  159  1918  12.06  23 
Hospital Universitario Virgen del Rocío, HIV Research Group  Basic/epidemiology  172  1920  11.16  20 
Centro Nacional de Microbiología (Instituto de Salud Carlos III), AIDS Immunopathology Unit  Basic  101  1314  13.01  20 
Hospital Universitario de Valme, Infectious Diseases and Microbiology Unit  Clinical  141  1558  11.05  19 
Hospital Universitario San Cecilio  Clinical/epidemiology  84  1157  13.77  19 
Centro Nacional de Biotecnología, Poxviruses and Vaccines  Basic  50  990  19.8  19 
Hospital General Universitario de Alicante, HIV Infectious Diseases Research Group  Clinical/epidemiology  114  1083  9.5  18 
Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria-Fundación Jiménez Díaz  Basic  90  1056  11.73  17 
Centro Nacional de Microbiología (Instituto de Salud Carlos III), Viral Infection and Immunity Unit  Basic  115  972  8.45  16 
Hospital Universitario Joan XXIII de Tarragona, Infection and Immunity Research Group  Basic/clinical  95  837  8.81  16 
Hospital Universitario de La Princesa, Department of Internal Medicine-Infectious Diseases  Clinical  75  814  10.85  16 
Hospital Universitario Donostia  Clinical/epidemiology  71  690  9.72  14 
Hospital Universitario Virgen de la Victoria  Epidemiological  77  557  7.23  11 
Hospital Universitario y Politécnico de La Fe  Epidemiological  51  478  9.37  11 
Hospital San Pedro, HIV Unit  Epidemiological  51  403  7.9  10 
Hospital Universitario Son Espases  Clinical/epidemiology  49  491  10.02  10 
Hospital Universitario Mútua Terrassa, HIV+/AIDS Research Group  Clinical/epidemiology  31  307  9.9  10 
Centro Nacional de Microbiología (Instituto de Salud Carlos III), HIV Biology and Variability Unit  Basic/epidemiology  30  255  8.5 
Hospital Universitario Parc Taulí, Retrovirus Research Group  Epidemiological  28  230  8.21 
Centro Nacional de Microbiología (Instituto de Salud Carlos III), Molecular Virology Unit  Basic  25  265  10.6 
Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Digital Health Research Unit  Basic/clinical  11  272  24.73 
Hospital General Universitario Reina Sofía  Epidemiological  28  185  6.61 
Hospital Universitario de Canarias  Epidemiological  27  163  6.04 
Universidad de La Laguna, Cellular and Viral Immunology  Basic  81  10.12 
Complejo Hospitalario de Navarra, HIV Infection Research Group  Epidemiological  11  63  5.73 

RIS: Red de Investigación en Sida [AIDS Research Network].

a

Although they are not listed on the RIS website, the groups of the Instituto de Investigación del Hospital Sanitario La Paz (IdiPAZ) [Hospital Sanitario La Paz Research Institute] and the group of Instituto de Investigación del Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau [Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau Research Institute] have been included in the analysis, given their links with the network. Meanwhile, the group “La Doctora Álvarez” has not been considered, as it is focused on carrying out scientific communication activities.

The generation of the co-authorship network with the authors who had the highest productivity (>9 documents) and intensity of collaborative links (>9 documents in collaboration with other researchers) (Fig. 1) made it possible to determine that the main component consisting of the largest number of interconnected authors was made up of 482 authors, 158 of whom (32.78%) were linked to the RIS. The authors of the main component linked to the RIS had an intermediation average (0.00497) much higher than the rest of the authors (0.00118), as well as significantly higher productivity (44.26 documents per author compared to 25.65 by the other authors).

Fig. 1.

Network of co-authors with the nucleus of the most productive authors (>9 documents and >9 co-author links) on HIV–AIDS in Spain (2010–2019) with the identification of the members of the Red de Investigación en Sida [AIDS Research Network]. The size of the nodes reflects the degree of intermediation in the network.

(0.83MB).
Thematic analysis of Spanish research on HIV–AIDS

Five large thematic research clusters were identified (Fig. 2), including one linked to antiretroviral therapy and its complications and another focused on the study of co-infection (hepatitis B, hepatitis C, leishmaniasis) and comorbidity with other diseases (liver cirrhosis, tuberculosis, opportunistic infections and non-infectious comorbidities). The focus of the third large cluster was basic research linked to the genetic characterisation of the virus (including genetic variations, replication, mutations, inhibitors, and drug effects). A fourth cluster addressed aspects related to the development of vaccines, and the fifth, was the study of transmission in specific groups or associated with sexual behaviour.

Fig. 2.

Map of the thematic clusters of Spanish research on HIV–AIDS (2010–2019) generated from the co-occurrence of the MeSH descriptors assigned to the documents.

(0.5MB).

No gender-related differences were detected (M = 2513, F = 2409) and the research was focused mainly on the adult population (n = 2161) and more on the 45−64-year-old population group (n = 1656) compared to young adults (aged 19–24, n = 582). There were fewer studies focusing on adolescents (n = 458) or older adults (n = 428), and fewer still on the 0−12-year-old population groups (97–199 documents).

Discussion

The results of this study provide an update to previous studies which analysed the growth in Spanish research on HIV–AIDS since the 1980s. We have found clear evidence of the continuing growth of Spanish scientific output in this field from the 1821 journal articles identified in national databases in the period 1983–1992 in the study by Aleixandre et al.19 (average of 182.1 documents/year) or the 2254 documents published in the WoS databases in the period 1985–2001 reported by Civera et al.20 (132.59 documents/year), to the 2065 documents included in Medline in the period 1991–1999 reported by Ramos Rincón et al.22 (229.44 documents/year), and now the 3960 documents analysed in this study corresponding to the period 2010–2019 (average of 396 documents/year). We should also highlight that the participation of Spanish researchers in specialised publications on HIV has increased from the 17.91% in the study by Uusküla et al.26 corresponding to the period 2002–2011, to now representing 24.12% of the documents.

The distribution of Spanish research on HIV–AIDS by research areas is in line with that observed globally, both about the main disciplines responsible for promoting research (infectious diseases, immunology and virology) and in terms of scientific journals, as Spanish researchers participated in a greater or lesser extent in all the most productive journals on HIV identified by Tran et al.27 Much research on HIV–AIDS continued to be published in Spanish journals, tripling that on other infectious diseases in 2003–2007, particularly in EIMC,28 which remained the most productive Spanish journal (n = 211). The research also achieved significant worldwide projection, with 88.89% of the documents (n = 3520) published in international journals. Also particularly significant is the increase in articles published in high-impact journals; Uusküla et al.26 estimated that Spanish publications on HIV in journals with an Impact Factor ≥3 only accounted for 7.88% of the publications in the period 2002–2011, while in our study, this figure had shot up to 69.43%. Using the JCI normalised indicator, 38.56% of the documents were published in journals with a higher citation count than the average for their categories, confirming the positive growth in the degree of visibility and impact of Spanish research on HIV–AIDS.

We also found a significant increase in scientific collaboration. From an author’s point of view, Lakeh and Ghaffarzadegan3 highlighted that the average number of authors per document in HIV publications worldwide increased progressively from 4.2 in the 1980s and 1990s to around 6.2 in 2012. Those figures were far exceeded in our study (11,29), with considerable growth in multiple authorship studies with many authors. The high percentage of documents in international collaboration was also remarkable and well above other areas of biomedical research. Scientific collaboration and participation in international networks are particularly important in a complex multidisciplinary area like HIV–AIDS research, as it helps improve the sharing of knowledge, expertise, resources and data.24 The prominent participation of Spanish researchers, and members of the RIS in particular, in initiatives such as cohorts, biobanks and the promotion of multi-centre studies may partly explain the high levels of collaboration observed.29 In total, Spain has various important cohorts of patients infected with HIV and AIDS, such as the CoRIS, the Cohorte Nacional de Pacientes Pediátricos con Infección VIH (CoRISPe) [Spanish Cohort of Paediatric Patients with HIV Infection] and the Proyecto para la Informatización del Seguimiento Clínico-epidemiológico de la Infección por VIH y Sida (PISCIS) [Project for the Computerisation of the Clinical-epidemiological Follow-up of HIV Infection and AIDS], all of them coordinated with other international cohorts such as COHERE, ART-CC and EuroCOORD.1,29,30

There is no question of the importance of the RIS, as its researchers were behind 60% of the scientific output analysed. The groups and researchers linked to this network had significantly higher scientific output and citation values than authors and published documents outside the network. These aspects have also been confirmed by other studies which bibliometrically characterised the networks linked to HIV research, such as the one by Nye et al.,24 analysing the HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN); they showed that the researchers linked to the HVTN doubled their scientific output in a decade, and their publications obtained a significantly higher citation count, with many of their contributions being among those with the highest visibility.

This study has identified, and bibliometrically characterised the entire Spanish scientific output on HIV–AIDS from 2010 to 2019. However, in the specific analysis of the RIS groups, we have to consider their dynamic nature, as some groups and researchers were part of the network for the entire period and others for only part of the time. Nonetheless, our evaluation provides important information about the research activity carried out by these groups during a time of reformulation of the research structures in this area.

Another limitation of our study is that by carrying out the search process using the MeSH thesaurus, the view we have provided is fundamentally of the biomedical research on HIV–AIDS, and this might be complemented by an analysis of research focused on psycho-social aspects, highlighting areas such as prevention and educational measures. Lakeh and Ghaffarzadegan3 confirmed the greater biomedical orientation of research on HIV–AIDS in countries with a lower incidence of the disease and lower mortality rates, estimating that in the case of Spain, less than 30% of the research focuses on social and behavioural aspects. In the current context of globalisation, without neglecting biomedical, basic and clinical research, in which Spain, with the leadership of the RIS, has become a major international benchmark, we need to include social and behavioural aspects and give greater weight to areas such as the analysis of perception and risk behaviours (for example, drug users and sexual practices), the identification of infected people, mental health, social support and initiatives that help reduce discrimination and stigmatisation of infected people.

The main conclusion of our study is that Spanish research on HIV–AIDS has reached a stage of maturity, with an impressive level of scientific output and integration into international collaboration networks. Spain, particularly the RIS initiative analysed in this study, can stand tall as a leading reference for other countries whose research in the area is less well-developed.10–12

Conflicts of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Appendix A

Table A1.

Number of documents published on HIV–AIDS in Spain (2010–2019) distributed according to the thematic affiliation of the publication journals.

Category  Number of documents  Percentage  Number of citations  Average citations/doc. 
Infectious Diseases  1823  46.04  25,947  14.23 
Immunology  987  24.92  17,383  17.61 
Virology  744  18.79  12,054  16.20 
Microbiology  699  17.65  9916  14.19 
Pharmacology & Pharmacy  577  14.57  6890  11.94 
Multidisciplinary Sciences  346  8.74  4884  14.12 
Public, Environmental & Occupational Health  253  6.39  2417  9.55 
Medicine, General & Internal  198  5.00  7813  39.46 
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology  133  3.36  2534  19.05 
Gastroenterology & Hepatology  102  2.58  1806  17.71 
Respiratory System  82  2.07  872  10.63 
Medicine, Research & Experimental  81  2.05  1711  21.12 
Social Sciences, Biomedical  78  1.97  785  10.06 
Chemistry, Medicinal  74  1.87  1039  14.04 
Paediatrics  67  1.69  416  6.21 
Health Policy & Services  57  1.44  428  7.51 
Health Care Sciences & Services  55  1.39  368  6.69 
Biotechnology & Applied Microbiology  54  1.36  532  9.85 
Cell Biology  49  1.24  1140  23.27 
Tropical Medicine  48  1.21  445  9.27 
Psychology, Multidisciplinary  42  1.06  391  9.31 
Table A2.

Distribution of the number of authors with the number of documents in Spanish research on HIV–AIDS (2010–2019).

Number of documents  Number of authors  Percentage  Number of authors linked to the RIS  Percentage 
10,096  64.29  15  4.64 
2378  15.14  13  4.02 
1022  6.51  24  7.43 
518  3.30  22  6.81 
340  2.16  20  6.19 
224  1.43  10  3.09 
154  0.98  10  3.09 
128  0.81  2.79 
90  0.57  14  4.33 
>9  753  4.79  186  57.58 
Total  15,703  100  323  100 
Table A3.

Distribution of the research into the scientific activity and citation according to the orientation of the research by the RIS groups (2010–2019).

Type of research  Number of groups  Number of authors  Number of documents  Number of citations  Average citations/document 
Basic  72  945  16,096  17.03 
Basic/clinical  104  1234  20,673  16.75 
Basic/epidemiology  18  202  2175  10.77 
Clinical  24  302  4526  14.99 
Clinical/epidemiology  75  716  9658  13.49 
Epidemiology  30  206  1730  8.4 
Total  38  323  2393  38,089  15.92 
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