How often are Patients Interviewed in Health Research? An Informetric Approach

In recent years research funding bodies have increased their emphasis on the engagement between researchers and the public. As part of this increased emphasis, the UK’s National Institute for Health Research aims to promote a research-active population. A way in which patients can be research-active is by participating in research interviews. In order to assess the past levels of this type of contribution of patients to research, this paper investigates the extent to which health research refers to patient interviews. Co-word indicators for the interviewing and qualitative interviewing of patients are used to gauge how the levels of interviewing and qualitative interviewing in Web of Science (WoS) articles have varied over time, between science and social science and between WoS categories. The results indicate that the level of interviewing of patients, referred to in WoS articles, rose steadily between 1991 and 2013. Moreover, the amount of interviewing and qualitative interviewing varied substantially between health-related fields, with a marked tendency for more interviews in social science research and fewer in science research. Conference Topic Indicators