Trends in the Authorship of Peer Reviewed Publications in the Urology Literature

Abstract

IntroductionWe evaluated the authorship count of all original research and review articles published in prominent urology journals in relation to trends in authorship during the last decade. We also evaluated bibliometric assessments, and sought to understand whether authorship count was associated with citation rate and each article’s field normalized measure of impact. MethodsInformation on authorship count, date of publication, study type, journal of publication, citation rate and relative citation ratio was collected for all original research and review articles published in European Urology, The Journal of Urology®, Urology and BJU International between 2006 and 2016. We examined trends in authorship count during the last decade, as well as between journals and article types. ResultsA total of 21,336 articles were analyzed, of which 19,527 (91.5%) were original research and 1,809 (8.5%) were review articles. Overall the number of authors increased 46.1% from 2006 to 2016. Authorship counts in original research articles increased by an average of 2.45 per manuscript (43.3% increase) during the decade analyzed. More dramatically, authorship counts in review articles increased by an average of 3.14 per manuscript (92.6% increase). Articles with higher authorship counts were associated with more citations and a greater relative citation ratio (r=0.13, p <0.001). ConclusionsThere is a global trend toward more authors per article in urology publications for original research as well as review articles, and across each of the individual journals evaluated. An increase in author count has also been associated with increased citations and measures of article impact.