Citation Classics in Nursing Journals: The Top 50 Most Frequently Cited Articles From 1956 to 2011

Global production of nursing research: A 10-year survey of subspecialty nursing journals

AIM

This study aimed to investigate the characteristics of global productivity of nursing research in subspecialty nursing journals and to provide a general view of global nursing research.

METHODS

On 10 January 2020, Web of Science was used for research collection. Publications in subspecialty nursing journals from 2015 to 2019 were analysed.

RESULTS

A total of 34 275 publications were retrieved. The United States (15 155) ranked first, followed by Australia (2439), China (2076), Brazil (1803) and the United Kingdom (1602). High-income economies produced 82.26% of the total number of publications. Research production was not significantly correlated with the population (p = 0.113, r = 0.412), whereas it was positively correlated with gross domestic product (p = 0.030, r = 0.541). The United States had the highest number of total citations (46 297). The Netherlands ranked highest when analysing mean citations, followed by Finland and Australia. Sweden ranked highest after correcting for gross domestic product, followed by Australia and Finland. Australia was the most productive nation when adjusted by population, followed by Sweden and Norway.

CONCLUSION

The United States is the leader in nursing research productivity. Countries with large economies tend to make greater contributions to global nursing research. Some European countries and Australia were found to be more prolific when stratified by population size and economic activity.

Trends and hot topics in nurse empowerment research: A bibliometric analysis

AIM

The characteristics of the publications on nursing empowerment should be investigated in order to get an idea about the development of the field and to determine the developments in nursing practices and research. This study aimed to investigate the characteristics of the current knowledge structure and developmental process in nurse empowerment by using bibliometric methods.

METHODS

The data of this retrospective descriptive study were obtained from the Web of Science (WoS). All relevant studies conducted before 2020 were included in the study. The data analysis was conducted with Excel, SPSS and VOSviewer.

RESULTS

Five hundred eighty-nine studies conducted between 1974-2019 were included in the study. It was found that 72.15% of these studies were journal articles and these studies were conducted by 1,450 authors. The studies were published in 109 journals and were produced by researchers from 49 different countries. Also 47.5% of these studies were conducted in the United States. Hot topics were "empowerment", "nursing," "structural empowerment," "nurses," "job satisfaction" and "psychological empowerment."

CONCLUSION

There has been a noteworthy increase in the number of studies on nurse empowerment and this field offers an active field of study for nursing researchers. The focus of the studies varies from nurses to nurse managers.

Binge Drinking: The Top 100 Cited Papers

We conducted a review to analyze the 100 most-cited studies on binge drinking (BD) in the Web of Science (WoS) database to determine their current status and the aspects that require further attention. We carried out a retrospective bibliometric analysis in January 2021. The year of publication, authors, design, subject, journal, institution and lead author’s country, as well as the definition of BD, were extracted from the articles. The data on the country, year, thematic category of the journals and their rank were obtained from the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) Journal Citation Reports 2020. The number of citations was collected from the WoS, and the h index was collected from the Scopus database. The citation density and Bradford’s law were calculated. The majority of the articles were empirical quantitative studies with a cross-sectional design published between 1992 and 2013 in 49 journals. There were 306 authors, mostly English-speaking and from the USA. The definitions used to describe BD are not homogeneous. The most-cited topics were the analysis of consequences, determinants and epidemiology. There is a need to unify the definitions of BD and base them on scientific evidence. The multidisciplinary nature of BD is not well reflected in each of the thematic areas discussed in this work.

Top 100 cited paramedicine papers: A bibliometric study

OBJECTIVE

Understanding the impact different journal articles have in any academic field is important - particularly in emerging professions. A bibliometric analysis like this does not yet exist for paramedicine, despite the rapid increase in its primary literature. The objective of the present study was to identify and analyse the 100 top-cited articles about paramedicine.

METHODS

We searched the Scopus database in August 2020 for studies relating to paramedicine. After screening titles and abstracts, we extracted the citation count, journal name, publication year, and country of origin. We manually assessed whether the study was clinical or not, noted the sex of the authors, the profession of first and last authors and the study design used.

RESULTS

The median citation count for the top 100 papers in paramedicine was 58 (interquartile range 46-84 citations). The articles were published across 48 different journals, with Resuscitation and Prehospital Emergency Care being the two most frequent. The top-cited paramedic papers originated from 16 different countries and were written predominantly by medical doctors. Three quarters (73%) of the studies had a clinical focus, and a quarter (26%) were randomised controlled trials.

CONCLUSIONS

The evolution of paramedicine towards professionalism is backed up by the growth of its own body of knowledge. This analysis of the 100 most cited studies in paramedicine is the first of its kind and highlights that paramedicine articles have a high citation count and are published across numerous journals, but with a relative lack of contribution from paramedic practitioners and female researchers.

Directions of the 100 most cited nursing student education research: A bibliometric and co-citation network analysis

AIMS

To identify and analyze the 100 most cited articles on nursing student education (NSE) that were published in nursing journals.

BACKGROUND

The citation frequency of an article indicates its scientific impact. Analyzing highly cited articles on NSE enabled researchers to identify mainstream research types and acquire relevant information and knowledge.

DESIGN

A retrospective bibliometric analysis with co-citation network analysis.

DATA SOURCES

We searched for journal articles on NSE from the Web of Science, and analyzed the 100 most cited articles (date of search: June 3, 2020).

REVIEW METHODS

The theme, article type, journal, country, source of institutional articles, and publication year were counted and analyzed. The citation relationships among the most 100 cited articles of NSE were calculated and visualized.

RESULTS

Articles included in this study were mostly empirical quantitative studies with a cross-sectional design, and were published in international nursing journals between 2000 and 2020. Their authors were mostly from the United States and the United Kingdom. According to the co-citation network analysis, four main research directions were identified: workplace mental health, simulation learning, spiritual care, and medication administration.

CONCLUSION

Workplace mental health was the major research topic on NSE. This research topic has spanned two decades (2000-2020). These articles were mainly published in the Journal of Advanced Nursing and Nurse Education Today. Some recent research topics, such as simulation learning and spiritual care were also identified. Findings provide a fresh review of the highly cited NSE articles, including the visualization of the NSE network.

Leadership in healthcare: a bibliometric analysis of 100 most influential publications

Aim

We analysed the 100 most influential articles on leadership in healthcare via a bibliometric analysis to better understand categories and topics in leadership science and their relationship to healthcare. Leadership in healthcare is ever evolving and needs to be robust like any another profession.

Methods

A bibliometric analysis was performed. Articles were ranked by citation counts and three independent reviewers screened the abstracts for inclusion. Common themes were categorised.

Results

Citations for articles ranged from 53 to 487 and were published across 50 journals. Articles focused primarily on three leadership subjects: team building, quality improvement and healthcare delivery. Of healthcare provider groups, articles were directed to or concerning primarily: nursing, academic medicine and critical care medicine.

Conclusions

We identified gaps in healthcare leadership development literature. There is an opportunity to effectively identify areas of interest and demand for organised leadership education and training.

Conflict in nursing studies: A bibliometric analysis of the top 100 cited papers

AIM

This study aimed to identify and investigate the main characteristics of the top 100 most cited studies on conflict in published in nursing category in the Web of Science database using bibliometric and social network analysis methods.

DESIGN

A retrospective bibliometric analysis was used.

METHODS

The study data were obtained from the Web of Science (WoS) database. The top 100 studies with the highest number of citations were included in the study. The study data were analysed with Excel and SPSS and they were visualized with VOSviewer.

RESULTS

It was concluded that the studies in the research were published in 38 different journals between 1974-2019 and they were conducted by 245 different authors from 24 different countries. It was further reported that the Journal of Advanced Nursing was the most productive journal and the USA was the most productive country. The most commonly used keywords were "nurse," "conflict," "nursing," "job satisfaction," "work-family conflict" and "ethical conflict."

CONCLUSION

The issue of conflict is a growing field of scientific study for nursing researchers. The quality of researches will be certainly enhanced in future with the studies published in journals with high impact factors.

IMPACT

The research of the top 100 most cited paper is a new and innovative bibliometric approach to understand nursing literature. There is very little information about the development, structure and characteristics of the existing mass of knowledge on conflict in nursing studies. The study findings establish a basis of information for planning further studies and providing guidance. In addition, this study provides researchers, scientific journals, institutions and countries with an opportunity to assess and compare their own performance in conflict literature in nursing studies. However, the fact that the most cited studies in the field of conflict in nursing is in demand by journals with high impact factor is a source of motivation for researchers studying in this field.

Bibliometric analysis of literature regarding ostomy research based on the Web of Science database

Objective

To analyze the literature status and research hotspots of Science Citation Index (SCI)-related ostomy in the world and to provide references for scientific research and clinical work in the stoma care field.

Methods

Based on the Web of Science core database and its own analysis function, HistCite analysis software and Excel were used to study the published research about ostomy patients.

Results

A total of 1,262 articles were published between 1910 and 2016 with the authors from 48 countries and regions, 1,347 research institutions, published in 321 journals, with 4,048 first authors and coauthors; globally, there was a trend of slow growth in the number of authors every year. The study in the USA was absolutely in the lead position, and Canada and Turkey were more active. China's circulation volume was the 15th in the world. The periodical that published most often was the Journal of Wound Ostomy and Continence Nursing The most interdisciplinary surgical studies were surgery and nursing, where these should be considered important. The most prolific author in the field was "Grant", and the highest cited article was entitled as "Living with a stoma: a review of the literature".

Conclusions

The related research of global stoma is constantly developing. The research hotspot is nursing before and after stoma surgery. China and the USA are leading countries in research. They should follow the recent trend to improve the depth and breadth of the research in the field.

Stress in nurses: The 100 top-cited papers published in nursing journals

AIM

To identify and analyse the 100 most cited papers on stress in nurses published in nursing journals.

BACKGROUND

The number of citations an article receives is an index of its impact on the scientific community. An analysis of the most cited articles on stress in nursing would allow us to identify the most important articles and to obtain information about this area of knowledge.

DESIGN

A retrospective bibliometric analysis.

DATA SOURCES

In 2016, 111 journals belonging to the "nursing" category were identified in the Science and Social Science Citation Index. A search was performed of the Science Core Collection Website for articles on stress published in these journals.

REVIEW METHODS

The topic, type of article, publishing journal, countries and institutions of origin and year of publication were extracted from the articles. The impact factor, immediacy index, journal country and publisher and h index were collected from the Institute for Scientific Information. The citation density, citation tendency and Bradford's law were calculated.

RESULTS

They identified articles were mostly empirical quantitative studies with a transversal design, published from 1975 - 2011 in 23 journals. They were signed by 233 authors, most of whom are English-speaking from the USA and UK. The core distribution of the publications comprises a single journal, the Journal of Advanced Nursing.

CONCLUSION

The study of stress in nursing has shown increased visibility and recognition each decade. The most recent articles have the highest number of citations, are the highest in rank and have the higher citation densities.

Fifty top-cited spine articles from mainland China: A citation analysis

Objective To identify the 50 top-cited spine articles from mainland China and to analyze their main characteristics. Methods Web of Science was used to identify the 50 top-cited spine articles from mainland China in 27 spine-related journals. The title, year of publication, number of citations, journal, anatomic focus, subspecialty, evidence level, city, institution and author were recorded. Results The top 50 articles had 29-122 citations and were published in 11 English-language journals; most (32) were published in the 2000s. The journal Spine had the largest number of articles and The Lancet had the highest impact factor. The lumber spine was the most discussed anatomic area (18). Degenerative spine disease was the most common subspecialty topic (22). Most articles were clinical studies (29); the others were basic research (21). Level IV was the most common evidence level (17). Conclusions This list indicates the most influential articles from mainland China in the global spine research community. Identification of these articles provides insights into the trends in spine care in mainland China and the historical contributions of researchers from mainland China to the international spine research field.

Characteristics of Highly Cited Articles in Interventional Cardiology

Citation classics have been published in many fields of medicine; however, none have focused on interventional cardiology. The goal of this study was to identify the top 100 articles in the field of interventional cardiology and highlight their important trends and characteristics. The Scopus database was used by 2 independent reviewers to extract the top 100 articles using a variety of keywords. We found articles published between 1953 and 2012. Majority (n = 78) of the top 100 articles were published between 1996 and 2010, and the United States was affiliated with the highest number of articles in our list (n = 68). Over half (n = 54) the articles were funded. Private funding was correlated with higher citations (p = 0.036). A third (n = 33) of the papers had authors with conflicts of interest; however, conflict of interest had no effect on citations (p = 0.837). Majority (n = 57) of the articles studied coronary angioplasty and stenting; followed by coronary angiography (n = 14). Women were underrepresented, with only 11 female first authors in the top 100 papers, and only 1 female in the list of top authors who had 5 or more publications. In conclusion, the following features define the typical highly cited article in interventional cardiology-a clinical trial conducted in the United States, which studies angioplasty, and has been published relatively recently in a high-impact journal by a male first author.

Highly Cited Occupational Therapy Articles in the Science Citation Index Expanded and Social Sciences Citation Index: A Bibliometric Analysis

OBJECTIVE

A bibliometric analysis was completed of highly cited occupational therapy literature and authors published from 1991 to 2014 and accessible in the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-Expanded) and Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) databases.

METHOD

Data were obtained from the SCI-Expanded and SSCI. Articles referenced >100 times were categorized as highly cited articles (HCA).

RESULTS

Of 6,486 articles found, 31 were categorized as HCA. The American Journal of Occupational Therapy published the largest number of HCA (n = 8; 26%). The 31 HCA were distributed across seven countries: United States (20 articles), Canada (3), United Kingdom (3), Australia (2), the Netherlands (1), New Zealand (1), and Sweden (1). The three authors with the highest Y-index were S. J. Page, F. Clark, and W. Dunn.

CONCLUSION

A latency period of 4 to 5 yr post-publication appears to be needed for a journal article to gain citations.

Exploring an Unknown Territory: "Sleeping Beauties" in the Nursing Research Literature

BACKGROUND

Sleeping Beauties (SBs) are publications that are scarcely cited in the years immediately following publication but then suddenly become highly cited later. Such publications have unique citation patterns and can reveal important developments in the field in which they appear.

OBJECTIVES

No holistic analysis of nursing SBs has been done yet. The aim of this study was to identify and analyze the SB phenomenon in the nursing research literature.

METHOD

The corpus for the nursing SB identification was harvested from the Web of Science Core Collection (Thomas Reuters) for the period 1934-2015. Citation histories of 212,239 publications were screened. From those, 3,209 publications with more than 100 citations were selected for analysis. We used our own software and applied the van Raan (2004) and Baumgartner (2010) criteria for SBs-a 5-year sleeping period with at most 10 citations during that time, an average of at least five citations per year after the first 10 years, with at least 100 citations in total. The knowledge context for SBs was determined using citing papers. All citing papers were analyzed with the help of VOSviewer software.

RESULTS

Nine publications were identified as SBs (prevalence of 0.004%). The length of sleep duration ranged from 5 to 10 years (M = 6.8, SD = 2.0), depth of sleep ranged from 0.2 to 0.8 citations (M = 0.6, SD = 0.2), and awake intensity ranged from 6.4 to 15.0 citations (M = 11.0, SD = 3.8). The average number of citations to SBs was 229. Most nursing SBs were produced in the United States (n = 8) from top institutions in journals with high-impact factors. Nursing SBs covered topics including resilience, sampling in qualitative research, metasynthesis, postoperative pain in children, dementia rating scales, care of patients with Alzheimer's disease, nursing theory related to fatigue mechanisms in cancer patients, and family participation during resuscitation. Nursing SBs were cited by authors from a large number of institutions and countries; the number of publications citing nursing SBs is growing exponentially and showing increasing and global interest in the research presented in them.

DISCUSSION

This study demonstrated that SBs in nursing are similar to other scientific disciplines. Existence of SBs suggests that nursing knowledge accumulation is supported by research and professional processes similar to those that emerged in other academic disciplines.

Highlights in bioethics through 40 years: a quantitative analysis of top-cited journal articles

BACKGROUND

The field of bioethics is constantly evolving. To investigate trends in the field of bioethics, we conducted a quantitative analysis of the top-cited articles in bioethical journals over the past 40 years.

METHODS

Retrospective quantitative study of the 20 most cited bioethics articles published each year from 1975 to 2014 were conducted. Article samples were selected from a list of the most relevant 100 journals in the field of bioethics.

RESULTS

In total, 800 top-cited articles between 1975 and 2014 in the domain of bioethics were retrieved and analysed. More than half of them were composed by single authors, but multiauthorship became more prevalent with time. The majority (84.5%) of these highly cited articles originated from the USA (65.3%), UK or Canada, though the proportion of other countries increased in recent years. Almost half (44.6%) of the highly cited articles belonged to the subfield of clinical ethics, but other subfields such as research ethics, public health ethics and neuroethics became more prominent. Overall, the distribution of Thesaurus keywords and subfields became more diverse over time, and the number of journals publishing top-cited articles doubled. Furthermore, the empirical ethics approach increased over time in our sample of top-cited articles.

CONCLUSIONS

In sum, the forefront of bioethics is getting more diversified, collaborative and international. The presumed 'mainstream' becomes less dominant over time, as more highly cited articles come from new subfields, discuss new topics, use more Bioethics Thesaurus keywords, more authors participate and more countries other than the USA contribute to bioethics journals.

The top 100 most cited scientific reports focused on diabetes research

AIMS

The number of citations that a paper has received reflects the impact of the article within a particular medical research area. However, which articles are cited most frequently in diabetes research is unknown. We aimed to identify the most frequently cited 100 articles that describe advances focused on diabetes research.

METHODS

Science Citation Index Expanded database was used to determine the 100 most cited articles in diabetes research. The key characteristics of the top 100 cited articles, including citation ranking, year of publication, publishing journal, type of study, h-index, PMC citation, patent citation, country of origin, funding source, and authorship, were analyzed.

RESULTS

The number of citations ranged from 10292 to 1121. The 100 most cited articles were published between 1962 and 2010. New England Journal of Medicine published the largest number of the most cited articles (n = 23), followed by Diabetes Care (n = 14) and Nature (n = 12). The greatest number of contributions came from the USA, followed by the UK and Canada. RCT was the most popular article type, followed by basic science studies and observational studies. There was a positive correlation between total citations and h-indexes and PMC citations, while there was no correlation with patent citations.

CONCLUSIONS

The most influential report in diabetes research seems to be RCT, which is performed to confirm the effectiveness and outcome of anti-diabetes drugs in patients with diabetes. This study presents insight into the historical development of diabetes research, and provides foundations for further investigations.

Classic Citations in Main Primary Health Care Journals: A PRISMA-Compliant Systematic Literature Review and Bibliometric Analysis

The impact of a publication in a particular medical area is reflected by the number of times the article is included as a citation. It is not known, however, which articles are cited the most in primary care journals. In our study, we aimed to identify the 100 most cited articles in primary care medicine and analyze their characteristics.We searched the Science Citation Index Expanded for articles published in 18 primary care journals using the subject category "Primary health care." We identified 100 articles in primary health care that were the most cited. We analyzed the characteristics of these articles using the title, number of citations, citation density, year of publication, journal source, decade published, country of origin, institution, author names, and type of article.The 100 articles that were cited the most were published between the years 1977 and 2009. The 1990s decade was the most productive decade. The number of citations ranged from 117 to 775. The articles were published in 9 journals and the journal with the largest number of most cited articles (n = 33) was the Journal of Family Practice. This was followed by the British Journal of General Practice (n = 17) and the journal Family Practice (n = 16). The United States was the most productive country (n = 59); the United Kingdom was next (n = 25) and this was followed by Canada (n = 5) and The Netherlands (n = 5). The most popular article type was a review article and this was followed by a qualitative study and then methodological study.Our study provides insight into the historical development of primary care studies, based on citations, and provides the foundation for further investigations.

Bibliometric analysis of the top 50 cited respiratory articles

BACKGROUND

Citation classics have been published in almost all medical fields. The main objective of this study was to provide the readers with a complete updated guide using two different citation tracking sources in assessing respiratory literature published in respiratory specific or general medical journals.

METHODS

Scopus Library database ( www.scopus.com ) was used to determine the 50 most cited articles regarding respiratory medicine using the subject category "respiratory system." The results from the database were sorted using the option "Times cited."

RESULTS

The top 50 articles were published during the time period 1987-2008, with most articles (n = 22) published from 1996 to 2000.The topic that had the highest number of articles (n = 15) was chronic obstructive pulmonary disorders (COPD) followed by asthma (n = 10).

CONCLUSION

A periodic evaluation of the top cited articles can help researchers identify the quality of work in respiratory system and pinpoint subtopics which have not been given due consideration.

The top-cited articles in medical education: a bibliometric analysis

PURPOSE

To identify and examine the characteristics of the 50 top-cited articles in medical education.

METHOD

Two searches were conducted in the Web of Knowledge database in March 2014: a search of medical education journals in the category "Education, Scientific Discipline" (List A) and a keyword search across all journals (List B). Articles identified were reviewed for citation count, country of origin, article type, journal, authors, and publication year.

RESULTS

Both lists included 56 articles, not 50, because articles with the same absolute number of citations shared the same rank. The majority of List A articles were published in Academic Medicine (34; 60.7%) and Medical Education (16; 28.6%). In List B, 27 articles (48.2%) were published in medical education journals, 19 (33.9%) in general medicine and surgery journals, and 10 (17.9%) in higher education and educational psychology journals. Twenty-six articles were included in both lists, with different rankings. Reviews and articles constituted the majority of articles; there were only 8 research papers in List A and 13 in List B. Articles mainly originated from the United States, Canada, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. The majority were published from 1979 to 2007. There was no correlation between year and citation count.

CONCLUSIONS

The finding that over half of List B articles were published in nonmedical education journals is consistent with medical education's integrated nature and subspecialty breadth. Twenty of these articles were among their respective non-medical-education journals' 50 top-cited papers, showing that medical education articles can compete with subject-based articles.

Fifty top-cited classic papers in orthopedic elbow surgery: A bibliometric analysis

OBJECTIVE

The number of citations that a paper has received reflects the impact of the article within a particular medical area. Citation analysis concerning the most cited articles have been widely reported in orthopedic surgery and its subspecialties. However, which articles are cited most frequently in orthopedic elbow surgery is unknown. This study aimed to identify and analyze the characteristics of the 50 most cited articles in elbow surgery.

METHODS

Science Citation Index Expanded was used to search for citations in 181 journals chosen according to the relevance for elbow publications. The 50 most cited articles in elbow surgery were identified. The title, authors, year of publications, article type, journal source, country, institution, number of citations, decade published, citation density and level of evidence were recorded and analyzed.

RESULTS

The 50 most cited articles were published between 1950 and 2010. The 1980s was the most productive decade. The number of citations ranged from 388 to 124. All the articles were written in English and published in nine journals. The majority of articles originated from United States, followed by Canada and United Kingdom. Fracture was the most discussed topic. The majority of the top cited articles were clinical studies, with the remaining basic research. The most common level of evidence was level IV.

CONCLUSIONS

Identification of the most cited papers in elbow surgery shows an insight into the historical development of elbow surgery and provides the foundation for further investigations.