AN OVERVIEW OF RESEARCH ON PSYCHOLOGY OF AGING. A BIBLIOMETRIC ANALYSIS (1991-1995)

Abstract

During the last years the number of researches done in the field of Psychology of aging has rapidly increased. The aim of the present work is to show the results of a bibliometric analysis of the research done on that subject during the last years (1991-1995) using Psyclit as database. The descriptors like "aged", "aging", "old" and "elder", which previously have been found to be very related to that issue, where used as keywords. 16.833 articles (1991 = 3243, 1992 = 3512, 1993 = 3490, 1994 = 3576, 1995 = 3011) have been analysed for that period, 8 to 10 % of the whole number of publications of the database, a result which shows clearly the importance of the Psychology of aging in current psychology. Of the whole number of 33.000 authors that have published in this field during the fiveyear period, the most productive ones are mencioned, as well as the journals containing most of these works. Finally an analysis of topics offers a view about the most treated subjects in that field.