The condition of interdisciplinary communication among various Educational and Research Departments of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The study aimed to assess interdisciplinary communication among various Educational and Research Departments of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences (IUMS) in clinical medical sciences using social network analysis. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The study was carried out using scientometrics method and interdisciplinary communication network analysis. Interdisciplinary network of 1298 articles in medical sciences published in Journal of Isfahan Medical School was evaluated using macro- and micro-level criteria of network analysis. Ravar Matrix, UCINET, and VOSviewer software were used to analyze the interdisciplinary network of medical sciences articles. RESULTS: Findings showed that "Students Research Committee" and "School of Medicine," the affiliations of the medical students in general practice with scores of 272 and 197, "Epidemiology and Biostatistics," "Community Medicine," and "Internal Medicine" with 170, 101, and 99, respectively, possessed the first ranking of productivity index in scientific communication. Furthermore, in betweenness centrality index, "Epidemiology and Biostatistics" (3427.807), "Students Research Committee" (2967.180), and "Community Medicine" (1770.300) have an appropriate position in the network. Based on the centrality index, "Epidemiology and Biostatistics" (22.412), "Students Research Committee" (22.185) as well as "Community Medicine" and "School of Medicine" (both 21.554) acquired the least amount of distance with other nodes in network. CONCLUSION: Given the increased specialization in medical fields in recent years, communication between researchers with various specializations and creation of interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary departments had turned into an undeniable necessity. Therefore, communication between educational or research departments can facilitate the flow of information between researchers; and consequently, the top ranking departments in this study had more participation in scientific production of IUMS and getting more scores in annual evaluation by scientometrics department. This network analysis showed that researchers in various medical fields closely collaborate with each other and are able to connect with <2 intermediates.