Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis of Medical Students’ Research Output in Six Developing Countries

BackgroundPublishing in peer‐review journals is among the useful outcomes resulting from participating in medical research. In particular, medical students perceive it as important aspect of improving employment chances and associated with long term academic career success. There is lack in studies with objective measure assessing the medical students’ research output in developing countries. This study aims to investigate the quantity and quality of medical students’ research output in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries (GCC).Methodsabstracts presented by medical students in the medical students GCC conference were subject to analysis. Abstracts which propagated into full‐length articles were subject to further demographic analysis in which information in regard to type of study, field of study, country of origin, mode of presentation and journal's impact factor were collected.Results798 abstracts were studies, and 19% (n=155) were found to be published for all the GCC countries with average impact factor of 1.85 ± 0.26 (SE). Countries which recorded the highest conversion rats in descending order were Saudi Arabia, United Arab of Emirates, Oman, Bahrain and Kuwait. Moreover, basic biomedical and clinical research topics were to be likely more publishable than community oriented and medical education related topics.Conclusioneffective efforts should be promoted to encourage more medical students” research output in the GCC countries with focusing on qualitative aspects too to reach the numbers reported by developed countries.