ArticleJournal of orthopaedics and traumatology : official journal of the Italian Society of Orthopaedics and Traumatology2026
Authorship, titles and open access as drivers of citation performance in orthopaedics: a scientometric analysis.
Article in Journal of orthopaedics and traumatology : official journal of the Italian Society of Orthopaedics and Traumatology, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
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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.
The trial behind it
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Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Orthopaedic publications receive fewer citations than general medicine articles: a scientometric analysis of temporal trends.Journal of orthopaedics and traumatology : official journal of the Italian Society of Orthopaedics and Traumatology · 2026Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundBibliometric analyses are increasingly used to explore how scientific knowledge is created, disseminated, and perceived. In orthopaedics, research output has expanded rapidly over the past decade, yet the factors determining whether an article achieves wide visibility and scholarly impact remain poorly understood. Beyond the inherent quality of a study, elements such as authorship patterns, title construction, and open access (OA) availability may play an essential role in shaping citation performance. However, evidence in this field is still limited and sometimes contradictory, highlighting the need for large-scale, field-specific analyses.
methodsOrthopaedic publications from 2010 to 2020 were identified in Scopus using the keyword 'orthopaedic'. After duplicate removal, 97,806 unique articles were included with complete data on authorship, titles, citation counts, study design, and OA status. Citation rates were normalised per year since publication. Associations between bibliographic features and citation performance were assessed using multiple linear regression, while differences across title styles and study designs were evaluated with comparative statistical testing. Exploratory modelling was performed to identify combinations of authorship and title characteristics linked to the highest predicted citation rates.
resultsLarger author teams were associated with higher citation rates (β = 0.108 citations/year per additional author, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.103-0.114, p < 0.001). OA articles achieved a mean increase of 0.175 citations/year compared with non-OA (p = 0.001). Title length in characters correlated positively with citation rate (β = 0.023 per character, p < 0.001), whereas title length in words showed a negative association (β = -0.183 per word, p < 0.001). The presence of a colon (+0.314 citations/year, p < 0.001) or dash (+0.187, p = 0.001) increased citation performance, while question marks (-0.476, p < 0.001) and all-capital titles (mean 0.71 citations/year) reduced it. Regarding study design, network meta-analyses achieved the highest citation rate (mean 6.64 citations/year), followed by systematic reviews (5.66), meta-analyses (5.08) and narrative reviews (4.81). Randomised controlled trials (3.90) and clinical trials (3.86) performed at an intermediate level, whereas observational studies (2.40), case series (1.79), technical notes (1.33), case reports (0.77), editorials (0.51) and commentaries (0.25) showed consistently lower citation performance (p < 0.0001).
conclusionsIn orthopaedic research, collaboration, OA availability and concise, well-structured titles with selected punctuation contribute to higher citation performance, while unconventional title formatting reduces visibility. Although useful for optimising dissemination, ethical authorship practices and rigorous scientific standards remain more critical than citation metrics.
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Registered trials
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.