Worldwide productivity in the field of foot and ankle research from 2009–2013: a bibliometric analysis of highly cited journals

Abstract

BackgroundSignificant growth has been observed in the field of foot and ankle research in recent years. However, bibliometric studies concerning the quantity and quality of articles published in foot and ankle journals are scarce. This study aimed to reveal the characteristics of national productivity in the field of foot and ankle research and to provide a general picture of foot and ankle research for surgeons and researchers.MethodsWeb of Science was searched for foot and ankle articles in 4 highly cited journals from 2009 to 2013. The number of total articles and citations were collected to evaluate the contribution of different countries. Publication activity was adjusted for the countries by population size and gross domestic product (GDP).ResultsA total number of 2083 articles were published worldwide. North America, West Europe, Australia and East Asia were the most productive world regions. High income countries published 90.35% of articles, middle-income 9.60%, and low-income just 0.05%. The United States published the largest number of articles (1025/2083, 49.2%), followed by the United Kingdom (221/2083, 10.6%), Australia (92/2083, 4.4%), and had the highest total citations (3631). However, Canada had the highest average citations per article (5.0), followed by Australia (4.6) and Switzerland (4.2). There were positive correlations between the total number of publications and population/GDP (p < 0.01). When normalized to population size, Switzerland ranked the highest, followed by Australia, and the United Kingdom. When adjusted for GDP, Switzerland ranked the highest, followed by United Kingdom, and South Korea.ConclusionsThe United States is the most productive country in the field of foot and ankle research. However, Australia, some smaller European and Asian countries may be more productive relative to their size.

Światowa produktywność badań w dziedzinie endokrynologii i metabolizmu — analiza bibliometryczna

“…This result indicates that the United States plays an important role in scientific endeavours on endocrinology and metabolism. The United States has been a leader in biomedical research for decades, including endocrinology metabolism as well as other subfields in biomedical research [9][10][11][12][13][14]. In addition to producing the most articles overall, articles from the United States have the most citations (260,934) of endocrinology and metabolism publications, as well as one of the highest mean number of citations (12).…”

“…Also, bibliometric analysis can be used to investigate trends in scholarly publications and the relative importance of articles on a specific topic. Bibliometric analysis has been used to determine national contributions to research fields including oncology [4], cardiovascular disease [5], rheumatology [6], nutrition and dietetics [7], diabetic retinopathy [8], emergency medicine [9], critical care medicine [10], anaesthesia [11], plastic and reconstructive surgery [12], foot and ankle research [13], and arthroscopy [14].…”

“…Scientific publications report new knowledge in the field and also indicate the productivity of the researchers. Bibliometric methods can be used to evaluate research productivity, and contributions from various areas in the world can be assessed [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]. Our study was the first to use bibliometric evaluation to analyse the contributions of various countries to research in endocrinology and metabolism.…”

“…sum, average, and percentage. A Spearman's test was used for correlation analysis [10,13,14]. SPSS version 19.0 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA) was used for all statistical analyses and p < 0.05 was considered as significant.…”

Orthopaedic research activity in South Africa measured by publication rates in the 15 highest impact journals related to population size and gross domestic product

“…1 In general, the total number of publications by a country is one of the indicators of research output and productivity and is an important aspect of clinical excellence. [2][3][4] While the developing world contains more than 75%…”