Use of h index and g index for American academic psychiatry

Abstract

Several publication metrics are used for the evaluation of academic productivity. h index and g index are relatively new statistics for this purpose. Our aim is to evaluate academic psychiatrists' h and g indices at different academic ranks in the United States. 30 psychiatry programs from the American Medical Association's FREIDA online database were included to the study. From each academic rank, the total number of papers (P (total)), the single authored papers (P (single)) and the h and g indexes of faculty members were calculated by using one way ANOVA for multiple comparisons as primary analysis test. The metric medians as follows; P (total) = 34.5, P (single) = 13, g index = 19.5 and h index = 9. h index significantly differed between academic ranks except chairperson-professor. The other indices failed to distinguish junior academic ranks (associated professor-assistant professor) in addition to chairperson-professor. The strongest correlation was between h index and g indexes. Of the indices evaluated, the h-index is best tracked with academic ranking in psychiatry programs studied.