Bibliometric Analyses of Global Scholarly Output in Dentistry Related to COVID-19
Frank Mayta‐Tovalino
Abstract
INTRODUCTION The city of Wuhan in China has been the scene of the beginning (December 2019) of the appearance of a new disease that mainly affects the respiratory system.[1] Researchers have identified that the virus responsible for this pandemic is severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS CoV-2).[2] Later, in 2020, the World Health Organization declared coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) a pandemic. This disease has killed approximately 4,959,112 people and infected 244,210,069 worldwide.[345] Coronavirus disease is a rapidly spreading viral infection and is more contagious than SARS.[6] The suggested route of transmission from person to person is through microdroplets in the air, and it is also spread when interacting with a person or a contaminated surface among other transmission routes such as the saliva. These transmission routes are alarming, as they are routes of COVID-19 infection in the dental environment.[7] A bibliometric analysis is needed that quantitatively examines some indicators of production, impact, and collaboration, such as number of documents, number of citations, collaboration rates, and co-authorship rate in order to offer a comprehensive evaluation based on trends of scientific research on COVID-19 in dentistry.[8910] The bibliometric study is important given the accelerated and continuous growth of the academic production of articles in the world. This approach allows the analysis of an emerging topic or field in the global panorama of knowledge and the evaluation of the evolution of research over time. In addition, it provides critical ideas on the most prolific authors, affiliations, countries, and institutions, within the field of interest.[11121314] Therefore, the purpose of this bibliometric study was to evaluate the bibliometric profile of the world scientific production in dentistry related to COVID-19 in Scopus (2019–2020). MATERIALS AND METHODS STUDY DESIGN The study was a descriptive, observational, comparative, and retrospective study. The unit of analysis was composed of each scientific publication that appears in the Scopus database. All manuscripts on COVID-19 in dentistry published between December 2019 and December 2020 were selected for this reason, and it was not necessary to calculate a statistical sample. The variables were measured objectively using Scopus (Scival). SEARCH STRATEGY For the extraction of the manuscripts, the keywords were used: “Covid-19” and “Dentistry” with its multiple MeSH terms using the Boolean operators “OR” and “AND”. In the search fields, the title, abstract, and keywords were used to search all the manuscripts globally in these databases to raise bibliometric indicators. The following formula was used in Scopus: (TITLE-ABS (“COVID 19” OR COVID-19 OR sars-cov-2 OR “sars cov-2” OR “sars cov 2” OR 2019-ncov OR “2019 ncov” OR “Coronavirus Disease-19” OR “ Coronavirus Disease 19 “OR” 2019 Novel Coronavirus Disease “OR” 2019 Novel Coronavirus “OR” SARS Coronavirus 2 “OR” Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome CoV 2 ”OR nCov-2019) OR AUTHKEY (“ COVID 19 “OR COVID-19 OR sars-cov-2 OR “sars cov-2” OR “sars cov 2” OR 2019-ncov OR “2019 ncov” OR “Coronavirus Disease-19” OR “Coronavirus Disease 19” OR “2019 Novel Coronavirus Disease” OR “2019 Novel Coronavirus” OR “SARS Coronavirus 2” OR “Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome CoV 2” OR nCov-2019)) AND SUBJAREA (dent) AND (LIMIT-TO (PUBYEAR, 2019) OR LIMIT-TO (PUBYEAR, 2020)) Inclusion criteria Manuscripts on COVID-19 in journals indexed in Scopus Manuscripts about COVID-19 in any language in Scopus Manuscripts on COVID-19 of any methodological design in Scopus Exclusion criteria Manuscripts on COVID-19 in databases such as EMBASE, Web of Science, Scielo, PubMed. Manuscripts on COVID-19 in areas that do not compromise dentistry Manuscripts on COVID-19 in dentistry in years prior to 2020 DATA COLLECTION For the elaboration of the descriptive analysis, the Microsoft Excel program was used where the means, standard deviation, and percentages of the numerical and categorical variables expressed in tables and graphs are tabulated. Scopus search tools were used for bibliometric calculations. On June 14, 2021, 843 manuscripts corresponding to the period January 2019 to December 2020 were downloaded, and refined through metadata analysis. The publications included article designs (413), letters (170), reviews (126), editorials (85), notes (39), errors (5), short surveys (3), and conference papers (2) [Figure 1].Figure 1: Flow diagramSTATISTICAL ANALYSIS The search strategy was developed based on the individual profiles of each Peruvian institution that has a dental school or faculty. It was evaluated according to the AF-ID of each of the institutions in the Scopus database during the period 2019–2020. In addition, the information provided by the SciVal tool from Scopus was used, from which all statistical data corresponding to scientific production in dentistry in Peru were extracted. For data processing, the SciVal (Elsevier) system was used, which uses four different sections for the analysis of information, which include generalities, comparative evaluation, collaboration, and trends, within which the following sections could be analyzed: countries, institutions (academics, industry, government, hospitals, and others), authors, publications, subject fields, and magazines and the Microsoft Excel 2019 program. In addition, collaborative networks in scientific productions were analyzed using VOSviewer. Finally, descriptive statistics were performed to calculate frequencies and percentages for each study variable. RESULTS The Journal of Dental Research and the Journal of Endodontics had the highest impact with an average of 60.4 and 55 citations for each publication, respectively, as they are the most productive indexed scientific journals in COVID-19 in dentistry. Regarding the number of authors, Oral Oncology, Oral Diseases, British Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Journal of Dental Education, and International Journal of Current Research and Review were found to condense the highest number with 222, 218, 170, 140, and 116 researchers, respectively. However, according to the number of citations per publication, it revealed that Journal of Dental Research, International Journal of Oral Science, and International Journal of Paediatric Dentistry had the highest number of citations per publication with 60.4, 57.3, and 31.5, respectively [Table 1].Table 1: Top 50 of scholarly output of dentistry schools in Scopus (2019–2020)The institutions with the highest number of citations per publication were Queen Mary University of London and the University of São Paulo with an average of 13.9 and 7.1 citations per publication. On the contrary, the most productive institutions were Saveetha University, Universidade de São Paulo and King’s College London, with 42, 33 and 27 manuscripts, respectively. It is worth noting that three Brazilian universities were among the 10 institutions with the highest scientific production [Table 2].Table 2: Top 10 universities of scholarly output of dentistry schools in Scopus (2019–2020)Authors Martélli-Júnior, Hercílio and Machado, Renato Assis had the highest number of citations per publication with an average of 6.9 and 6.7, respectively. On the contrary, the most productive author was Patil, Shankargouda, who published 14 manuscripts, followed by Samaranayake, Lakshman Perera, and Machado, Renato Assis, who had 12 and 10 manuscripts published. The other authors only had less than 10 scientific publications on COVID-19 in dentistry during 2019–2020 [Table 3].Table 3: Top 10 authors of scholarly output of dentistry schools in Scopus according to gender (2019–2020)The institution with the highest scientific production of COVID-19 in dentistry was Saveetha University with 42 manuscripts. On the contrary, India was the most productive country, with 133 manuscripts published in Scopus. The author Patil, Shankargouda was the most productive, with 13 scientific publications. Finally, the International Journal of Current Research and Review was the journal that condensed the most with 53 manuscripts [Table 4].Table 4: Comparison of the top 5 of the main institutions, countries, authors and journalsIn 2019, there were only two scientific publications on COVID-19 in dentistry. In 2020, the largest with 228 manuscripts were published in Q1 journals, followed by 210 manuscripts in Q3 journals, and only 194 manuscripts were published in Q4 journals [Table 5].Table 5: Scientific production of COVID-19 on dentistry in Scopus by quartile of the journalWith a minimum number of three documents and three citations from the journal, there were six clusters that condensed the citation force of all publications. The most representative journals were the International Journal of Current Research and Review, Oral Oncology, Oral Diseases, British Dental Journal, and Journal of Dental Education [Figure 2].Figure 2: Citation by journalWith two documents per country and with a minimum of one citation, nine clusters were found, where the citation force was mainly represented by India, Brazil, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States as the main countries [Figure 3].Figure 3: Citation by countryWith a minimum number of five occurrences per keyword, 3,262 words were represented in five large clusters: COVID-19, pandemic, coronavirus, dentistry, and cancer, which were interrelated with all the keywords in dentistry [Figure 4].Figure 4: Co-occurrence by keywords authorDISCUSSION In the present bibliometric study, the aim of the study was to evaluate the bibliometric profile of the world scientific production in dentistry related to COVID-19 in Scopus (2019–2020). To identify researchers, sources, and research institutes, citations and mapping of their scientific activities on COVID-19 in dentistry should be conducted. It has been shown that the number of COVID-19 publications has increased notably in the last two years. According to the search strategy presented in the methodology, an average of 843 manuscripts have been found worldwide in one of the most important databases, such as Scopus. The methodology of this study can be extrapolated to deepen the state of research on COVID-19 in other fields of knowledge.[15] Although the United States and China are two world powers in research, the United Kingdom and India are countries with the highest number of scientific productions on COVID-19 in dentistry. This can be a bit contradictory as it is assumed that the initial boat was in China; therefore, Chinese academics should be leaders in publishing numerous manuscripts from the early phases of the pandemic.[16] Bibliometric evaluation is a powerful statistical strategy that presents the structures of a certain field of knowledge. For this reason, bibliometrics has been used in order to show solid data mainly in the biomedical field; for instance, there are some recent manuscripts of COVID-19 mainly in the middle area; however, a bibliometric evaluation of COVID-19 in world dentistry.[171819202122] For example, Iranian researchers have notably contributed to COVID-19 research with an average of 405 generally original manuscripts, most of which were published in high-impact biomedical journals with an average of 1507 citations from different journals. Despite their variety, the contributing authors and research institutions were not nationwide. Saberi et al.[22] described that the distribution of highly productive, influential authors was mainly affiliated with Tehran, whereas in our research, the most productive countries were India and the United Kingdom. This research is of theoretical importance because it seeks to explain the impact of this disease on dentistry; therefore, it is relevant to develop this research. In addition, it will contribute to the knowledge of the contribution to the scientific community and society. Scientific publications in the field of dentistry have not yet been investigated. Therefore, little is known about bibliometric studies in dental literature. In addition, there is little evidence regarding this bibliometric issue in relation to Peruvian and world dentistry that establish validated protocols for dental care; therefore, a line of research will be opened to improve decision-making in the profession. This bibliometric study[23] has some limitations. First, only the Scopus database was evaluated, which could omit the recovery of studies published in other important databases such as Web of Science. Second, bias can also occur because of the omission of studies published in languages other than English, such as Chinese, Arabic, and German. Third, the omission of recently published articles outside the cut-off period, such as manuscripts that have recently been accepted and have not yet been published. However, we consider that the findings obtained from the Scopus database provide robust evidence.[23] This study is important because currently, little is known about the impact of COVID-19 in dentistry; therefore, this bibliometric study contributes to the knowledge of the current state of worldwide research related to dentistry and care protocols. CONCLUSIONS Presently, there is a notable increase in global academic production in Scopus on the impact of COVID-19 in dentistry. India was the country with the highest scientific production on this subject, whereas Brazil is the only South American country with three highly productive universities. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to thank profusely to the memory of my research professors, PhD Karen Lizeth Alfaro Mendives and MSc Cesar Limaymanta Alvarez, and MSc Carlos Vilchez Roman from the Facultad de Letras y Humanidades of the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, for providing constant support in the preparation and revision of this manuscript. FINANCIAL SUPPORT AND SPONSORSHIP Nil. CONFLICTS OF INTEREST None to declare. AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS FMT conceived the ideas. FMT contributed to data collection. FMT and FMT analyzed the data. FMT led the writing. FMT critically revised the manuscript and gave final approval. ETHICAL POLICY AND INSTITUTIONAL REVIEW BOARD STATEMENT Not applicable. PATIENT DECLARATION OF CONSENT Not applicable. DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT The results obtained in the present bibliometric study were part of the postgraduate thesis to obtain the master’s degree in Bibliotecología e Información at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos. The data that support the study results are available from the author Dr. Frank Mayta-Tovalino, e-mail: [email protected], on request.