Over-use of questionnaires in conducting research in Iran: Two cases

Despite increasing of scientific Journals number and post graduate students, there is risk of over production of research papers using various well known questionnaires. This study investigate the trend of publishing articles based on two commonly used psychological questionnaires of Beck and general health quality (GHQ) in Iran and to compare the trend with other parts of the world. This study is a systematic review investigated 412 articles published from 2006-2011 in local and international journals which used Beck and GHQ questionnaires. Most (248) articles included in this study used Beck questionnaire and 146 articles used CHQ. Key words searched to find papers in this study were Beck, GHQ, general health quality, depression. Major local scientific databases including IranMedex, Scientific information database and Magiran and also international databases including PubMed nd Science rect were searched. Publication rates for articles using the two uestionnaires are on rise. During 2006-11 number of published articles from Beck questionnaires in Iran was 2.5 folds more than the United States and 18.5% of the total articles published in the world. Considering that Iran has about 1.3% of share of medical science publication of the world, those figures are high. Furthermore, number of published articles using GHQ questionnaires in the same period was ten times more than the United States and 50% of the world. Over use of questionnaires in doing and publishing similar studies is a waste of resources. This study recommends that researchers focus more on interventional studies to reduce burden of psychological disorders. Research centers and journal editors should also carefully consider similar studies published in recent years before funding similar projects or accepting their results for publication.