Bibliography of clinical research in Malaysia: methods and brief results

This article describes the methodology of this bibliography. A search was conducted on the following: (1) bibliographic databases (PubMed, Scopus, and other databases) using search terms that maximize the retrieval of Malaysian publications; (2) Individual journal search of Malaysian healthrelated journals; (3) A targeted search of Google and Google Scholar; (4) Searching of Malaysian institutional repositories; (5) Searching of Ministry of Health and Clinical Research Centre website. The publication years were limited to 2000- 2013. The citations were imported or manually entered into bibliographic software Refworks. After removing duplicates, and correcting data entry errors, PubMed's Medical Subject Headings (MeSH terms) were added. Clinical research is coded using the definition "patient-oriented-research or research conducted with human subjects (or on material of human origin) for which the investigator directly interacts with the human subjects at some point during the study." A bibliography of citations [n=2056] that fit the criteria of clinical research in Malaysia in selected topics within five domains was generated: Cancers [589], Cardiovascular diseases [432], Infections [795], Injuries [142], and Mental Health [582]. This is done by retrieving citations with the appropriate MESH terms, as follow: For cancers (Breast Neoplasms; Colorectal Neoplasms; Uterine Cervical Neoplasms), for cardiovascular diseases (Coronary Disease; Hypertension; Stroke), for infections (Dengue; Enterovirus Infections, HIV Infections; Malaria; Nipah Virus; Tuberculosis), for injuries (Accidents, Occupational; Accidents, Traffic; Child Abuse; Occupational Injuries), for mental health (Depression; Depressive Disorder; Depressive Disorder, Major; Drug Users; Psychotic Disorders; Suicide; Suicide, Attempted; Suicidal Ideation; Substance- Related Disorders).