Research productivity regarding psychosocial aspects of diabetes from India

Abstract

Introduction: psychosocial factors play an important role in chronic ailments like diabetes. Unfortunately, there is limited research in the area of diabetes and the published literature is scanty from India. In this study, we assessed the research productivity on psychosocial aspects of diabetes from India. Materials and Methods: the online database of PUBMED was searched using the search terms ‘psychosocial′, ‘diabetes’ in any field and ‘India’ in the author affiliation field. The available articles were studied further for analyzing the research productivity. Results: the number of available articles dealing with the psychosocial aspect of diabetes are 16 that constitute only 0.08% of the total papers in PUBMED. The articles were mostly in the form of original articles (13 out of 16) and the remaining three constituted a case report, review, and medical hypothesis. The majority of the articles originated from Delhi, Chennai, and Visakhapatnam. Conclusion: the research productivity from India is lacking in the psychosocial aspects of diabetes. The imbalance is marked as we have the highest disease burden and urgent measures are required to cover the gaps in the research.