Open Access

Zekeriya Aktürk, Umut Ege Tufan

• Objectives: This study aimed to identify personal losses of the dismissed family medicine academics and the four-year impact of the purge to the general scientific production of Turkish academic family physicians following the decree laws in 2016. Methods: A repeated cross-sectional study was conducted covering the time before 2008, 2009- 2012, 2013-2016, and 2017-2020. All actively-working assistant, associate, and full professors of family medicine in Turkey as of 14th July 2016 and recently hired academic staff after the coup attempt in 2016 were included in the study. The primary outcome variable of the study was the total number of publications listed in Google Scholar. Results: Data of 212 academics were analyzed. Of the participants, 23 (10.8%) were dismissed with the decree laws after the 2016 coup attempt, while 25 assistant professors were hired later. It was observed that the mean number of publications increased until 2016, followed by a decrease of 26.1% fromObjectives: This study aimed to identify personal losses of the dismissed family medicine academics and the four-year impact of the purge to the general scientific production of Turkish academic family physicians following the decree laws in 2016. Methods: A repeated cross-sectional study was conducted covering the time before 2008, 2009- 2012, 2013-2016, and 2017-2020. All actively-working assistant, associate, and full professors of family medicine in Turkey as of 14th July 2016 and recently hired academic staff after the coup attempt in 2016 were included in the study. The primary outcome variable of the study was the total number of publications listed in Google Scholar. Results: Data of 212 academics were analyzed. Of the participants, 23 (10.8%) were dismissed with the decree laws after the 2016 coup attempt, while 25 assistant professors were hired later. It was observed that the mean number of publications increased until 2016, followed by a decrease of 26.1% from 2013-2016 to 2017-2020. Further analysis of the data demonstrated a significant decline in the number of publications of the purged as well as non-purged individuals after 2016 (p<0.001). Although the purged academics were having relatively higher performance indicators in the previous years, they experienced a 48.8% loss (18.1% vs. 35.4%) in the number of publications after 2016 compared with their peers (p<0.05). Conclusion: The decree laws had impacts on the dismissed academic family physicians as well as the general family medicine academy as a whole. Mechanisms are needed to avoid interference of political processes with the science population.…