Evaluation of 100 most cited research articles on African medicinal plants

Abstract

The mission for drug discovery and progress has prompt researchers to scientifically validate the therapeutic uses of medicinal plants available worldwide, of which, African medicinal plants serve as a great reservoir. Despite the extensive work in the field of medicinal plants of African origin, however, bibliometric report on the work conducted on African medicinal plants is scarce, and hence, the present study aimed at evaluating the top 100 most cited articles on medicinal plant wealth of Africa. The literature data used for the bibliometric analysis was explored from Web of Science (WoS) while RStudio and VOSviewer software were used for data analysis and collaboration network visualization, respectively. The most prolific authors were Van Staden J, Jager AK, Teklehaymanot T whereas, the top 3 journals were Journal of Ethnopharmacology, Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine, and South African Journal of Botany. Most cited journals were Journal of Ethnopharmacology, Phytochemistry, Phytotherapy Research. The topmost institutions in terms of the number of articles were the University of KwaZulu-Natal, University of Addis Ababa and Pretoria. South Africa was the most cited country followed by Nigeria. Single country publications dominated the field and therefore, multiple country collaboration should be a focus of social networks among the researchers in the field.