We investigated Japanese articles relating to pharmaceutics and hospital pharmacy published between 1991 and 2006,grouping them by publication data in 5 year increments.Between 1991 and 2006 there had been an approximately 1.6-fold increase in the number of articles in“Japanese Journal of Pharmaceutical Health Care and Sciences /Japanese Journal of Hospital Pharmacy ”,and“YAKUZAIGAKU /Journal of Pharmaceutical Science and Technology,Japan ”.
The content of the articles was classified as medical pharmacy,physical pharmacy,biopharmaceutics,manufacturing pharmacy,analytics and clinical biochemistry and others,and we found that the number of articles on medical pharmacy published in 2006 had increased approximately 3-fold over those published in 1991.
A study of key words used in articles revealed that the“investigation”(analysis of questionnaires,case studies,and so on) occurred in approximately 28% of all articles.Further,over 20 years,there had been an increase in articles concerning practical training in pharmacy and generic drugs.An increasing trend was also seen for cooperative studies among institutions,hospital pharmacies and medical departments or colleges of pharmacy,as compared with studies exclusively on hospital pharmacy.
Our findings showed a clear change in medical pharmacy studies along with the expansion of pharmaceutical practice.
