Evidence map›Paper›PMID 32014699›Full record

ArticleThe Journal of surgical research2020

Factors Associated With the Highest and Lowest Cited Research Articles in General Surgery Journals.

C Haddon Mullins, Carter J Boyd, Brenessa Lindeman

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in The Journal of surgical research, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
5citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

5 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Article
  3. Article
  4. Article
  5. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors.

C Haddon MullinsSchool of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama.
Carter J BoydSchool of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama.
Brenessa LindemanDepartment of Surgery, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama. Electronic address: blindeman@uabmc.edu.

Funding

UAB Center for Clinical and Translational Science (CCTS)UL1TR001417 · NCATS · UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA AT BIRMINGHAM · PI KIMBERLY, ROBERT P. · 2015 to 2018
$31.4M
NCATS NIH HHS UL1 TR001417
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundCitation count is a common bibliometric tool used to determine the long-term impact and performance of journal articles. Many of the other potential factors associated with highly and lowly cited articles in the general surgery literature, however, remain unknown. The purpose of this study was to attempt to identify characteristics of articles that may predict or correlate with article citation counts and, consequently, article impact.

methodsWe identified articles from Annals of Surgery, British Journal of Surgery, and Journal of the American College of Surgeons between 1998 and 2008 that had 0-5 total citations. We then matched these articles to an identical number of the highest cited articles from these same journals for comparison. Student's t-tests, Wilcoxon rank-sum tests, chi-squared tests, and Fisher's exact tests were used to determine the significance of difference between data sets at a predetermined level of significance set to P < 0.05.

resultsSignificant differences of article characteristics between the two cohorts included higher prevalence of clinical studies (P = 0.3919), multi-institutional (P = 0.0007) and multi-national (P = 0.0023) studies, surgical oncology (P < 0.0001) or hepatobiliary focus (P < 0.0001) and published in Annals of Surgery (P < 0.0001) for the highly cited cohort. Highly cited articles were also more likely to have larger sample sizes (P = 0.0009), more authors (P < 0.0001), presence of statistically significant results (P < 0.0001), more references (P < 0.0001), more tables (P < 0.0001), more figures (P = 0.0001), and higher word counts for manuscript (P < 0.0001), abstract (P < 0.0001), and title (P < 0.0001).

conclusionsThere are a relatively small number of articles with 0-5 citations after 10 y for these major general surgery journals. This indicates that journals are consistently able to select articles that will be impactful in aiding future research. Certain factors, however, are associated with being highly cited as opposed to lowly cited, and an understanding of these factors can aid researchers and journals in designing and reporting future studies.

Indexed as

BibliometricsBiomedical ResearchGeneral SurgeryHumansPublishingBibliometricCitationsGeneral surgeryPeer-review

Identifiers

PMID32014699
PMCPMC8138854

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.