Worldwide research productivity in the field of back pain

Abstract

Background:This study aimed to show the world research productivity in the field of back pain and to help researchers follow the scientific development and promote the cooperation in this field.Methods:Web of Science (WoS) database was searched from 1995 to 2016 without other restrictions. The keywords were as follows: “lumbar NEAR pain,” “back pain,” “dorsalgia,” “backache,” “lumbago,” “back NEAR disorder,” and “discitis.” The following information of retrieved articles was analyzed: countries/territories, journals, publication year, authors, citation reports, and institutions. Publication activity was further adjusted for countries by gross domestic product (GDP) and population size.Results:A total of 50,970 articles were retrieved in WoS database from 1995 to 2016. The United States published the biggest number of articles (16,818, 33.00%), followed by England (4,582, 8.99%), Germany (3,871, 7.60%), Canada (3,613, 7.09%), and Australia (3,063, 6.01%). Sweden ranked the first after adjusted for publication, and Netherlands ranked the first after adjusted for GDP. Besides, there was positive correlation between total number of publications and GDP for each country (P < .05). Harvard University was the most productive institution (917, 1.80%), Maher CG was the most productive author (229, 0.45%) and Spine was the most popular journal (3605, 7.07%) in the field of back pain research. Moreover, the article titled “Clinical importance of changes in chronic pain intensity measured on an 11-point numerical pain rating scale” in Pain had the highest citations (1749).Conclusion:There was a significant increase in annual publications concerning back pain research worldwide. The total number of publications was positively associated with GDP in main productive countries. The United States was the most productive country, Harvard University was the most productive institution, Maher CG was the most productive author and Spine was the most popular journal in the field of back pain.

Needlestick injuries: a density-equalizing mapping and socioeconomic analysis of the global research

“…A limitation of this approach is the constant change in these socioeconomic parameters. However, they are commonly used as proxies to relate research productiveness to socioeconomic features (Chong et al 2016;Wang and Zhao 2018).…”

A Bibliometric Analysis of Nonspecific Low Back Pain Research

“…In view of the high incidence of NSLBP, a growing number of researchers have studied NSLBP, and relevant articles have been published in academic journals. Nevertheless, few studies on NSLBP have collected global data and conducted a large-scale retrospective analysis through bibliometrics [12][13][14].…”

“…Moreover, the visualization also can excavate valuable information by data-mining technology and display it intuitively [20]. Bibliometric analysis has been widely conducted in various areas, such as neurogenic bladder [21], long noncoding RNA [22], cancer [23], and pain [14,[24][25][26]. Liang et al performed a bibliometric analysis to evaluate the emerging trends and hotspots on the area of acupuncture for LBP from 1997 to 2016 [24].…”

The Impact of Hospital/University Affiliation on Research Productivity Among US-Based Authors in the Fields of Trauma, Surgical Critical Care, Acute Care, and Emergency General Surgery

“…A study done on worldwide research productivity in the field of back pain found that Harvard University was the most productive institution, followed by the University of Washington. 14 A similar study done on the top 100 cited articles in traumatology showed that an author who tied for most published articles was affiliated with the University of Maryland Medical Center. 15 It was also found that the University of California contributed 34% of the top 100 articles in traumatology.…”