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. 2019 Apr;11(1):14-17.
doi: 10.1055/s-0038-1661423. Epub 2018 Aug 9.

Common Topics of Publication and Levels of Evidence in the Current Hand Surgery Literature

Nicholas J Lemme  1   2 , Benjamin R Johnston  1 , Brandon C Smith  1 , Adnan Prsic  3 , Edward Akelman  2 , Brian C Drolet  4
Affiliations

Common Topics of Publication and Levels of Evidence in the Current Hand Surgery Literature

Nicholas J Lemme et al. J Hand Microsurg. 2019 Apr.

Abstract

Background Scientific publications are the primary vehicle for the distribution of scientific findings, but there has been limited research on literature topic surveillance. We sought to identify and characterize the most commonly published topic domains in the hand surgery literature. Methods We performed a 6-month hypothesis testing phase to identify the most frequently published topics in three hand surgery journals: Hand, The Journal of Hand Surgery (American), and The Journal of Hand Surgery (European). We reviewed all of the published articles in these journals from June 2010 to May 2015 to identify and characterize publications related to the three most common topic domains. Results A total of 2,146 articles were published during the 5-year study period. The three most frequent topics domains included distal radius (DR) (11% of all articles), flexor tendon (FT) (9%), and carpal tunnel (CT) (7.5%). These subjects accounted for a total of 584 articles (27% of all publications) and 3,014 published pages during the study period. FT, CT, and DR publications were cited on average 2.3 times per year (2.5, 2.4, and 2.0, respectively). Conclusion A small subset of topic domains makes up a significant proportion of scientific publications in hand surgery.

Keywords: citation analysis; level of evidence; publication bias; publication frequency.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest None.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Distribution of evidence levels among topic domains. Bar graph representing the number of publications that were assigned evidence levels of 1 to 5 for each respective topic domain. CT, carpal tunnel; DR, distal radius; FT, flexor tendon.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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