TY - JOUR T1 - Outputs and growth of primary care databases in the United Kingdom: bibliometric analysis JF - BMJ Health & Care Informatics SP - 284 LP - 290 DO - 10.14236/jhi.v24i3.942 VL - 24 IS - 3 AU - Fahmida Mannan AU - Zain Chaudhry AU - Angela Gibson-White AU - Usama Syed AU - Shirin Ahmed AU - Antonis Kousoulis AU - Azeem Majeed Y1 - 2017/07/01 UR - http://informatics.bmj.com/content/24/3/284.abstract N2 - Background Electronic health database (EHD) data are increasingly used by researchers. The major United Kingdom EHDs are the ‘Clinical Practice Research Datalink’ (CPRD), ‘The Health Improvement Network’ (THIN) and ‘QResearch’. Over time, outputs from these databases have increased but have not been evaluated.Objective This study compares research outputs from CPRD, THIN and QResearch assessing growth and publication outputs over a 10-year period (2004-2013). CPRD was also reviewed separately over 20 years as a case study.Methods Publications from CPRD and QResearch were extracted using the Science Citation Index of the Thomson Scientific Institute for Scientific Information (Web of Science). THIN data were obtained from University College London and validated in the Web of Science. All databases were analysed for growth in publications, the speciality areas and the journals in which their data have been published.Results These databases collectively produced 1,296 publications over a ten-year period, with CPRD representing 63.6% (n = 825 papers), THIN 30.4% (n = 394) and QResearch 5.9% (n = 77). Pharmacoepidemiology and General Medicine were the most common specialities featured. Over the 9-year period (2004–2013), publications for THIN and QResearch have slowly increased over time, whereas CPRD publications have increased substantially in the last 4 years with almost 75% of CPRD publications published in the past 9 years.Conclusion These databases are enhancing scientific research and are growing yearly, however display variability in their growth. They could become more powerful research tools if the National Health Service and general practitioners can provide accurate and comprehensive data for inclusion in these databases. ER -