The 50 most-cited articles on temporomandibular disorders: A bibliometric analysis

Abstract

Background: Temporomandibular disorders (TMD) are musculoskeletal conditions involving masticatory muscles and temporomandibular joints. Bibliometric analysis has been introduced as a new method for collecting and analyzing information on scientific articles.

Objective: The aim of this study was to identify the 50 most cited articles on TMD, performing a bibliometric analysis of the identified papers to favor research and clinical practice.

Methods: On December 17, 2021 a systematic research was performed to find all papers on TMD published in the literature. The Incites Journal Citation Reports dataset and Scopus database was used to obtain bibliometric indexes of the authors and metrics data of the journals, including Impact Factor, Eigenfactor Score, and Normalized Eigenfactor. VOSviewer was used to visualize the keyword mapping networking, with the nodes standing for keywords and the edges for keyword relationships.

Results: Out of 24372 papers obtained by the search strategy, the 50 most cited articles on TMD were analyzed. The paper with the highest number of citations (n= 3020) was on TMD research diagnostic criteria. Rate of citations per year collected by the 50 most cited articles on TMD has been increasing over time (from 627 in 2006 to 1483 in 2021). Most of them were cross-sectional studies (n= 20; 40.0%) and narrative reviews (n= 14; 28.0%).

Conclusion: This bibliometric study showed an increasing number of citations for articles on TMD, testifying a high interest in the last years. Starting from this analysis, future studies might provide high-quality evidence on TMD management.

Keywords: Temporomandibular disorders; bibliometric analysis; pain; rehabilitation; temporomandibular joint disorders.