Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2023 Mar:52:101094.
doi: 10.1016/j.nmni.2023.101094. Epub 2023 Feb 11.

The most influential COVID-19 articles: A systematic review

Suhaib Js Ahmad  1   2 , Konstantinos Degiannis  3   2 , Joseph Borucki  4 , Sjaak Pouwels  5 , David Laith Rawaf  6 , Marion Head  1 , Chun Hei Li  7 , Rami Archid  8 , Ahmed R Ahmed  9 , Anil Lala  1 , Wasif Raza  1 , Katie Mellor  1 , Doerte Wichmann  8 , Aristomenis Exadaktylos  2
Affiliations
Review

The most influential COVID-19 articles: A systematic review

Suhaib Js Ahmad et al. New Microbes New Infect. 2023 Mar.

Abstract

Background: Since December 2019, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2),causative pathogen of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), has triggered a pandemic with challenges for health care systems around the world. Researchers have studied and published on the subject of SARS-CoV-2 and the disease extensively. What is the significance of articles published, shared and cited in the early stages of such a pandemic?

Materials and methods: A systematic literature search in a time frame of 12 months and analysis rating using Principle Component Analysis (PCA) and Multiple Factor Analysis (MFA) were performed.

Results: The 100 most cited COVID-19 articles were identified. The majority of these articles were from China (n = 54), followed by United States of America (USA) (n = 21) and United Kingdom (UK) (n = 8). All articles were published in high-ranked, peer-reviewed journals, with research focusing onthe the diagnosis, transmission and therapy of COVID-19. The level of evidence of the 100 most cited COVID-19 articles on average was low.

Conclusion: In the early stages of a pandemic, new and innovative research can emerge and be highly cited, regardless of the level of evidence.

Keywords: COVID-19; Citations; ICU care; Intensive care; SARS-CoV-2.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declared no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Flow diagram demonstrating the methodology and data extraction.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
The hundred most cited Covid-19 articles study types.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Number of publications and citations per country.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Principal component analysis of the relationship between citation number, citation density, level of evidence and Impact.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Ahmad S.J., Ahmed A.R., Kowalewski K.F., Nickel F., Rostami K., Stocker C.J., Hakky S.M., Archid R., McWhinnie D., Mohajer-Bastami A., Seimenis D.S., Ahmad S., Mansour S., Ahmed M.H., Mital D., Exadaktylos A.K. Citation classics in general medical journals: assessing the quality of evidence; a systematic review. Gastroenterol Hepatol Bed Bench. 2020;13(2):101–114. Spring. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Ahmad S.J.S., Ahmed A.R., Exadaktylos A.K., McWhinnie D., Nickel F., Hakky S.M., Ramdin A., Müller P.C. Systematic review on citation classics in minimally invasive gastrointestinal surgery. J Minimal Access Surg. 2018 Oct-Dec;14(4):265–272. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Ahmad S.S., Ahmad S.S., Kohl S., Ahmad S., Ahmed A.R. The hundred most cited articles in bariatric surgery. Obes Surg. 2015 May;25(5):900–909. doi: 10.1007/s11695-014-1542-1. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Straus S., Glasziou W., Richardson S., Haynes R.B. fourth ed. Churchill Livingstone; Edinburgh, UK: 2011. Evidence based medicine: how to practice and teach it.
    1. Chen Q., Allot A., Lu Z. LitCovid: an open database of COVID-19 literature. Nucleic Acids Res. 2021;49(D1):D1534–D1540. - PMC - PubMed