Evaluating Strength of Evidence of Pediatric Otolaryngology Research Literature: A 20‐Year Review

Abstract

Objectives/Hypothesis: Quantity and quality of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery (OTL-HNS) research are increasing, yet patterns within Pediatric OTL-HNS publications are unknown. This study examines trends in the level of evidence of pediatric OTL-HNS articles over a 20-year period to quantify the growth and characterize contributing factors.Study Design: Review article. Methods: A retrospective review was conducted on 12 peer-reviewed OTL-HNS journals at three time-points: 1996, 2006, and 2016. Pediatric-specific OTL-HNS journals were selected; all were among the top 10 highest impact factor journals, with one pediatric-specific and one Canadian journal. Publication details, author characteristics, and study focus were collected. Papers were classified based on the Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine Levels of Evidence by two independent reviewers.Results: Of the 1,733 articles reviewed, 727 met inclusion criteria. A greater absolute number of pediatric OTL-HNS articles were published over the years studied: from 95 in 1996 to 359 in 2016 (P < .001). As well, the absolute number of high-quality studies has increased over the study period, from 28 articles in 1996 to 100 articles in 2016. However, the relative percentage of high-quality papers remained stable between 27.9% and 32.2% with an average of 29.7% (P = .89). Higher impact factor journals did not tend to publish higher-quality pediatric OTL-HNS articles (P = .48).Conclusions: Over the past 20 years, there is no appreciable improvement in the proportion of high-quality publications in pediatric OTL-HNS; however, there is an overall greater number of high-quality papers within OTL-HNS literature. These findings likely relate to challenges of research within pediatric surgical specialties.

Trends in otolaryngology publications: A 9-year bibliometric analysis of articles published in Journal of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery

“…Furthermore, there is a significant increase in pediatric OHNS articles published in the journal. Our findings are consistent with a recent Canadian review which showed a greater absolute number of pediatric OHNS articles published over 20 years [ 20 ]. Another Canadian study demonstrated that Pediatric OHNS was heavily represented among program directors, and may be partially explained by differences in remuneration.…”

The level of evidence in prosthodontics in relation to author's characteristics: An analysis of three leading prosthodontics journals

“…Results from high LOE studies tend to be more reliable and reproducible in clinical practices [ [5] , [6] , [7] ]. A review of the LOE of articles published in biomedical journals has produced contrasting outcomes, with some journals showing improvement, whereas others remained static [ [8] , [9] , [10] , [11] , [12] ].…”