Content and Bibliometric Analysis of Articles Published in the Journal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy

Abstract

Study Design Descriptive bibliometric analysis. Background Content and bibliometric studies are useful for describing the publication patterns of a given profession, such as physical therapy, within the medical and allied health fields. However, few studies have conducted these analyses on specialty physical therapy journals. Objectives To conduct a content and bibliometric assessment of publications within the Journal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy (JOSPT) and report publication and citation trends over multiple years. Methods All available JOSPT manuscripts published from 1980 through 2009 were reviewed. Only research reports, topical reviews, and case reports were included in the current analysis. Articles were coded by 2 independent reviewers based on type, participant characteristics, research design, purpose, clinical condition, and intervention. We obtained additional citation information (eg, authors and institutions) from a subset of articles published from 1992 through 2009 using bibliometric software. Results Of the 2233 available JOSPT publications, 1732 (77.6%) met criteria for inclusion. Of these, 1172 (67.7%) were research reports, 351 (20.3%) topical reviews, and 209 (12.1%) case reports. Over the last 30 years there has been a significant increase in the number of articles published and the percentage of research reports, systematic reviews, articles focused on prognosis, and articles including symptomatic participants. Percentage decreases were observed for topical or nonsystematic reviews and articles focused on anatomy/physiology. Top institutions, authors, and cited papers from 1992 through 2009 were identified in the bibliometric analyses. Conclusion JOSPT has shown publication trends for increased percentage of experimental and clinically relevant research. However, there may be a need for increased publication of randomized controlled trials and studies focused on diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment, if goals of evidence-based practice are to be met. J Orthop Sports Phys Ther 2011;41(12):920–931. doi:10.2519/JOSPT.2011.3808

Content and bibliometric analyses of the Journal of Manual & Manipulative Therapy

“…Based on previous studies, we hypothesized content trends across years to be linear. 3,4 Linearity was assessed by: (1) visual estimation of scatter plots and (2) hierarchical regression, whereby the independent variable and squared independent variable were entered in a first and second block, respectively. Curvilinear effects were present if the F-change value in the second block was significant (P,0.05), since variance explained was above and beyond that explained by a linear relationship (first block).…”

“…We used the same coding system developed by Coronado et al 3,4 to examine article characteristics important for determining publication trends. Characteristics are categorized into four domains: article type, participant type, research design, and study purpose.…”

“…The majority of data were from previous studies by our group. 3,4 However, since these data sets were limited to the years 1993-2009, a single rater (CBS) coded remaining articles from 2010 to 2012 to match time frames for the three journals. Approximately 3503 articles comprised the data from all three journals, 358 (10.2%) of which were related to manual therapy.…”

“…While annual output has improved, JMMT averaged less than half the annual number of papers compared to JOSPT or PTJ over a similar time frame. 3,4 Journal of Manual & Manipulative Therapy also had fewer articles per publication, which may suggest a within-issue capacity for continued growth. However, being a quarterly journal, JMMT may not have the ability to produce the same number of publications annually as JOSPT or PTJ, which are published monthly.…”

“…While both JOSPT and PTJ publish manual therapy articles, our analyses of these journals were not confined to manual therapy content. 3,4 Moreover, neither journal is specific to manual therapy research. A recent study descriptively quantified manual therapy content across multiple manual therapy journals, however data were limited, particularly for JMMT, and publication trends were not reported.…”