The Olympic legacy: Journal metrics in sports medicine and dentistry

Olympic Sports Science-Bibliometric Analysis of All Summer and Winter Olympic Sports Research

Introduction: The body of scientific literature on sports and exercise continues to expand. The summer and winter Olympic games will be held over a 7-month period in 2021-2022. Objectives: We took this rare opportunity to quantify and analyze the main bibliometric parameters (i.e., the number of articles and citations) across all Olympic sports to weigh and compare their importance and to assess the structure of the "sport sciences" field. The present review aims to perform a bibliometric analysis of Olympic sports research. We quantified the following topics: (1) the most investigated sports; (2) the main journals in which the studies are published; (3) the main factors explaining sport-specific scientific attractiveness; (4) the influence of being in the Olympic programme, economic weight, and local influences on research output; and (5) which research topic is the most investigated across sports. Methods: We searched 116 sport/exercise journals on PubMed for the 40 summer and 10 winter Olympic sports. A total of 34,038 articles were filtered for a final selection of 25,003 articles (23,334 articles on summer sports and 1,669 on winter sports) and a total of 599,820 citations. Results and Discussion: Nine sports [football (soccer), cycling, athletics, swimming, distance & marathon running, basketball, baseball, tennis, and rowing] were involved in 69% of the articles and 75% of the citations. Football was the most cited sport, with 19.7 and 26.3% of the total number of articles and citations, respectively. All sports yielded some scientific output, but 11 sports (biathlon, mountain biking, archery, diving, trampoline, skateboarding, skeleton, modern pentathlon, luge, bobsleigh, and curling) accumulated a total of fewer than 50 publications. While ice hockey is the most prominently represented winter sport in the scientific literature, winter sports overall have produced minor scientific output. Further analyses show a large scientific literature on team sports, particularly American professional sports (i.e., baseball, basketball, and ice hockey) and the importance of inclusion in the Olympic programme to increasing scientific interest in "recent" sports (i.e., triathlon and rugby sevens). We also found local/cultural influence on the occurrence of a sport in a particular "sport sciences" journal. Finally, the relative distribution of six main research topics (i.e., physiology, performance, training and testing, injuries and medicine, biomechanics, and psychology) was large across sports and reflected the specific performance factors of each sport.

Oral health problems in high-performance athletes at 2019 Pan American Games in Lima: a descriptive study

INTRODUCTION

Dental care is provided for high-performance athletes at national and international sports events. Elite athletes may seek care for sports-related injuries and pre-existing oral diseases. Previous studies indicate an association between oral health problems and negative performance impacts in elite athletes.

OBJECTIVES

To determine the prevalence of the most common oral pathologies in high-performance athletes during the emergency dental care performed at the Lima 2019 Pan American Games (JPL-19).

METHODOLOGY

All reports of athletes (≥18 years old, of both sexes, from 41 countries) who received emergency dental care at Pan American Villas during the JPL-19 were included. Injuries and types of oral diseases were classified according to the Injury and Disease Surveillance System proposed by the International Olympic Committee.

RESULTS

Of the 6680 participating athletes, 76 (1.14%) presented as dental emergencies, 90.8% (69/76) of the athletes seen presented pre-existing oral pathological conditions, the most frequent were periodontal diseases (34%, 26/76) and dental caries (29%, 22/76). Among the sports with the most cases, there were 22 (29%) in athletics, 6 (8%) in soccer, and 6 (8%) in taekwondo. The most frequent dental emergencies came from Peru, Puerto Rico, Bahamas, Grenada, and Venezuela.

CONCLUSIONS

Pre-existing oral diseases were more frequent than sports-related accidents. The most prevalent diseases were periodontal disease and dental caries disease. It is necessary to implement new care strategies for athletes, based on prevention, before and during sports competitions.

Bibliometric Analysis of Acta Stomatologica Croatica: 2009-2018

Objective

To analyze a bibliometric profile of scientific production published in Acta Stomatologica Croatica (ASCRO).

Material and methods

Scientific papers published from March 2009 to December 2018 were analyzed. Information on the year of publication was collected by four trained examiners. Dentistry area, study type and design, data analysis method, presence of randomization, number of authors and corresponding author affiliation were investigated. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics.

Results

A total of 328 articles were evaluated, with a predominance of research in the field of Dental Materials (16.5%), with original article being the most frequent (74.1%). Observational studies accounted for 52.4%, using inferential statistics (83.2%) and non-randomized experimental studies (66.1%). Cross-sectional studies were more common in areas of Behavioral, Epidemiologic & Health Services Research (86.3%), case reports in Craniofacial Biology (54.0%) and Oral Health Research (53.1%), while in vitro studies were more common in the areas of Dental Materials (90.7%), Microbiology / Immunology (70.0%) and Cariology Research (66.7%). Most articles were written by four authors (24.1%), while foreign affiliation was observed in 53.0% of studies.

Conclusion

The profile of ASCRO scientific production shows a predominance of original studies carried out in the areas of Dental Materials and Behavioral, Epidemiologic & Health Services Research, with growing participation of foreign researchers.