Research on veterans: A PubMed-based bibliometric analysis from 1989 to 2018

BACKGROUND Military veterans (veterans, in short), due to their unique military experience, face a variety of health issues either unique to their service or more common than the general population. This study aims to achieve a better understanding of the publications focused on veterans from 1989 to 2018 using a PubMed-based bibliometric analysis of research articles on veterans. METHODS We searched the PubMed website for publications in journal article category from 1989 through 2018, indexed with the MeSH descriptor, "Veterans" or 'Veterans Health'. Recorded articles were retrieved and analyzed. RESULTS During the period 1989-2018, there were 12,710 articles related to veterans or veterans' health, up from 66 articles in 1989 to 1,225 articles in 2018. Of all the selected articles, 5,242 (41.24%) can be classified under research support by the US government, 2,773 (21.81%) by non-US government, and 1,700 (13.38%) by the Office of Extramural Research (OER) of the NIH. Out of the 15 most prolific authors, 14 were affiliated with the US institutions. The journal that published the highest number of articles related to veterans was the journal Military Medicine (504 articles, 3.97%), followed by the Journal of Traumatic Stress (397 articles, 3.12%), Psychiatric Services (Washington, D.C.) (299 articles, 2.35%), and Journal of Rehabilitation Research and Development (279 articles, 2.20%). Among all publications, 18.04% (n=2,293) were published in journals of psychiatry, followed by 13.51% (n=1,717) of psychology and 7.71% (n=980) of neurology. CONCLUSION Publications related to veterans increased significantly from 1989 to 2018. A considerable number of the publications were in journals of psychiatric and psychological categories. However, most publications were descriptive of U.S veterans. Future research related to veterans in Taiwan deserves further exploration to provide a reference for prioritization of the health care and policy making.