Characterizing the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the orthopaedic surgery literature

Abstract

While the novel Coronavirus 2019 disease’s (COVID-19) impact on the practice of orthopaedics has been readily apparent, the effects of COVID-19 on the orthopaedic literature has not been studied. The objective of this paper is to analyze the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on peer-reviewed articles published in the orthopaedic surgery literature. Using the Journal Citation Reports, twenty orthopaedic surgery journals with the highest impact factor in 2019 were selected and articles within those journals were sorted by mention of COVID-19. The Altmetric Attention Score (AAS) and citation count were collected and compared for COVID-19 versus non-COVID-19 related articles using the Mann-Whitney U test. Furthermore, within COVID-19 related articles, AAS and citation count were compared using Kruskal-Wallis test between sub specialty of orthopaedics, type of article, study type, and quarter of publication. The average AAS of COVID-19 articles was significantly higher than non-COVID articles (15 vs. 6, p=0.019). Within COVID-19 articles, those pertaining to spine and trauma had a significantly lower AAS than those pertaining to orthopaedics as a whole (20 & 6 vs 51, p<0.001). The average number of citations accrued by COVID-19 articles was significantly higher than non-COVID-19 articles (8 vs. 1, p<0.001). Original COVID-19 articles received significantly more citations than editorial articles (10 vs. 5, p<0.001), as well as those published in the second quarter of 2020 compared to those published later (p<0.001). Orthopaedic articles related to COVID-19 demonstrated a greater influence, dissemination, and impact than articles not related to COVID-19 as demonstrated by AAS and citations accrued.