Abstract
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.
Highlights
Binge drinking (BD) is a risky alcohol consumption pattern with a high prevalence at the international level, especially among the youngest population [1,2,3,4].Given that BD is a pattern of consumption with multiple consequences at the organizational, psychological and social levels for both the binge drinker and those around him or her [5,6,7], in recent years, much research has been generated on this topic.One method that allows the quantitative analysis of scientific production and the thematic evolution of a determined field of research is bibliometry [8]
From the point of view of science policy based on excellence, examining highly cited works has been considered an option for the detection and monitoring of “excellent” scientific research [11]
We show the volume of citations in the Web of Science (WoS), which, not an absolute measure of the quality of an article [25], is an index of the impact the article has exerted in the scientific community, with the assumption that high-quality research will result in a greater number of citations than lower-quality research [26]
Summary
One method that allows the quantitative analysis of scientific production and the thematic evolution of a determined field of research is bibliometry [8] Metrics such as the number of publications, the number of citations or the impact factor (IF) of journals are often used as measures of relevance or productivity [9,10]. Using such metrics, the analysis of the most-cited articles on a topic allows us to identify which contributions are more visible, which have been more recognized or those that have exerted greater influence on the scientific community beyond the limits of their field of expertise [11,12,13]. From the point of view of science policy based on excellence, examining highly cited works has been considered an option for the detection and monitoring of “excellent” scientific research [11]
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