The impact of the COVID pandemic on publication disciplines among major general medical journals: A bibliometric analysis using natural language processing and traditional statistics

Abstract

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic has altered the design, conduct, and dissemination of medical and scientific research; yet, little is known regarding the changes in publication trends as a result of the pandemic. The principal objective of this study was to evaluate the changes associated with the COVID-19 pandemic regarding the representation of medical disciplines among top-ranking journals. Materials and Methods: PubMed was queried from January 1, 2019, to December 31, 2021, to identify the articles published in five high-impact factor general medical journals. Extracted data included publication type, publication date, and major MeSH terms. Journal Descriptor Indexing software produced a “discipline” per article for the analysis. Time periods of 01/2019–12/2019 (pre-COVID-19), 04/2020–12/2020 (early intra-COVID-19), and 1/2021–12/2021(late intra-COVID-19) were used to compare publication frequencies, by discipline (e.g., virology) and by article type (e.g., regular article, commentary, and letter). Results: 8706 articles were identified in the pre-COVID-19 period and 6611 and 8094 were identified in the early- and late-intra-COVID-19 period, respectively. During the periods of interest, 5203, 4248, and 4960 publications produced an indexed discipline. The distribution of publications by discipline differed significantly overtime, with “virology” increasing in rank from 18th to 1st (71 vs. 1364) pre versus early intra-pandemic, and remaining first late intra-pandemic (436 articles). Conclusions: These analyses provide a framework to quantify the shift in publishing practices toward virology-related articles during the pandemic. Virology was the most common topic in the early- and late-intra-pandemic periods. Future study should evaluate specialty-specific journals, as well as the examination of the broader impact of decreased non-pandemic specific articles during times of pandemic. The following core competencies are addressed in this article: Medical knowledge.