[Ophthalmology "Made in Switzerland" -- Swiss papers listed in Medline].

Background: Publications are one of the most important tools to measure scientific production in a particular sphere. Hence, the aim of this study was to identify the quantitative and (through Journal Impact Factor) qualitative amount of ophthalmological articles coming from Switzerland.
Materials and Methods: With a specifically developed software we searched 70 ophthalmological Journals indexed by Medline for articles from Switzerland.
Results: Not counting the publications related to the annual meeting of the Swiss Ophthalmological Society, the amount of Swiss papers in ophthalmological journals indexed by Medline, increased between 1988 and 1999 by a factor of four. In proportion to the global amount of ophthalmological publications we calculated an increase by a factor of 2.6. The amount of publications grew particularly during the analysed time period in journals with high impact factors. In 1999 a total of 1.8 % of the indexed ophthalmological articles originated from Swiss research institutes and hospitals. The average amount of authors of Swiss publications increased, thereby following an international trend.
Conclusions: The increased amount of publications may rely on the growing role of Swiss research in ophthalmology as well as on a broadened and deepened international orientation of Swiss ophthalmology. The increased number of authors can be explained by the growing complexity and interdisciplinary nature of research projects. Both, the amount of publications and the number of authors, can be linked to the "publish or perish" paradigm.