The fifty most cited articles of Arab countries in the orthopaedic literature

Abstract

Background: Several medical specialties have identified and ranked the top cited articles in their fields, including orthopaedics. In this study, our aim was to rank the top 50 orthopaedic articles in Arabic-speaking countries and identify the characteristics that make them more citable. Methods: Science Citation Index Expanded was searched for citations of articles originating in Arabic speaking countries and published in any of the 67 journals in the category “orthopaedics” from 1988 to 2014. We identified and ranked the 50 most cited articles and determined the citation density. Information noted for each article included authors, year of publication, country of origin, source journal, article type, and field of research. Results: Of all orthopaedic articles, only 0.8% originated from Arabic speaking countries. The top 50 most cited articles had between 22-124 citations; the citation density ranged from 0.89-8.27 citations/years. The articles were published in 17 of the 67 journals (seven general and 10 subspecialty journals), and all were published in English. The majority were clinical articles (96%), and the most common fields were general orthopaedics (26%) followed by spine surgery (20%) and pediatric orthopaedics (20%). The top 50 articles originated mainly from Saudi Arabia (40%) and Kuwait (18%). Conclusions: Arab countries have contributed less than 1% to the orthopaedic scientific literature. The list of most cited articles and the characteristics that made them more citable than others may be useful for researchers from this area to work on improving future research.