Impact of COVID-19 on Otolaryngology Literature

Abstract

Objectives/hypothesis: To understand the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the volume, quality, and impact of otolaryngology publications.

Study design: Retrospective analysis.

Methods: Fifteen of the top peer-reviewed otolaryngology journals were queried on PubMed for COVID and non-COVID-related articles from April 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021 (pandemic period) and pre-COVID articles from the year prior. Information on total number of submissions and rate of acceptance were collected from seven top-ranked journals.

Results: Our PubMed query returned 759 COVID articles, 4,885 non-COVID articles, and 4,200 pre-COVID articles, corresponding to a 34% increase in otolaryngology publications during the pandemic period. Meta-analysis/reviews and miscellaneous publication types made up a larger portion of COVID publications than that of non-COVID and pre-COVID publications. Compared to pre-COVID articles, citations per article 120 days after publication and Altmetric Attention Score were higher in both COVID articles (citations/article: 2.75 ± 0.45, P < .001; Altmetric Attention Score: 2.05 ± 0.60, P = .001) and non-COVID articles (citations/article: 0.03 ± 0.01, P = .002; Altmetric Attention Score: 0.67 ± 0.28, P = .016). COVID manuscripts were associated with a 1.65 times higher acceptance rate compared to non-COVID articles (P < .001).

Conclusions: COVID-19 was associated with an increase in volume, citations, and attention for both COVID and non-COVID articles compared to pre-COVID articles. However, COVID articles were associated with lower evidence levels than non-COVID and pre-COVID articles.

Level of evidence: 3 Laryngoscope, 132:1364-1373, 2022.

Keywords: Bibliometrics; COVID-19; publication trends; scientific publication.

Fig. 1

COVID and non‐COVID publication by journal. Percent of non‐COVID versus COVID publication by 15 ENT journals from April 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021 demonstrate that certain journals published a higher portion of COVID articles, especially J Laryngol Otol (30.0% COVID publications, n = 66), Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg (29.6%, n = 175), Int Forum of Allergy Rhinol (21.4%, n = 49), JAMA Otolaryngol Head Neck (21.4%, n = 59), and Head Neck (20.6%, n = 104).

Fig. 2

Publication type by journal and publication period. Data acquired from PubMed demonstrates that a majority of top ENT journals published more “Miscellaneous” and fewer “Observation/cohort/other” studies than non‐COVID and pre‐COVID articles. Additionally, journals tended to publish more “meta‐analysis/review” articles on COVID.

Fig. 3

COVID, non‐COVID, and pre‐COVID submissions. Number of unique submissions and accepted publications from April 2019–April 2020 (pre‐COVID) and April 2020–April 2021 (non‐COVID and COVID) show that a majority of selected top ENT journals had higher acceptance rates for COVID articles, compared to non‐COVID articles. Percent of articles accepted annotated on graph. Chi‐square P‐values identifying significant differences in acceptance rates between time period for each journal is shown on the figure as follows: *P < .05, **P < .01, ***P < .001.