Social Science Citation Index Research Articles

COVID-19 from the perspective of otorhinolaryngology: An analysis of bibliometrics.

BackgroundSince it began in December 2019, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak has not been completely contained. COVID-19 has attracted the interest of nations throughout the globe. The global coronavirus outbreak has had an especially devastating effect on otolaryngology. The virus is commonly associated with otorhinolaryngological symptoms. COVID-19 research is becoming more common in otorhinolaryngology. Although various studies on covid-19-related Otorhinolaryngology manifestations have been published, there has been no bibliometric analysis of these articles concentrating on COVID-19-related Otorhinolaryngology research.MethodsOriginal publications on Otolaryngological symptoms on COVID-19 were extracted from the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) and the Science Citation Index-Expanded (SCI-E) databases in Clarivate Analytics' Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) between January 2020 and May 2022. CiteSpace and VOSviewer were utilized to detect and assess the research focus and trends in this field by extracting the country/region, institution, author, journal, references, and keywords related to this topic.ResultsA total of 631 journals from 97 countries were included in the total of 1,528 articles. Most of the articles on this topic were published in the United States, which had the most citations and the highest H-index. Huazhong University of Science and Technology is the institution with the largest number of articles in the research of COVID-19-related Otorhinolaryngology diseases. Claire Hopkins was the most prolific author belonging to Guy's and St. Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust. Huang CL from Jin Yin-tan Hospital received the most citations among all authors. The most cited article was Clinical features of patients infected with 2019 novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China, which was created by Huang CL. Most of the studies relating to COVID-19 and Otorhinolaryngology diseases were published in the European Archives of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology.ConclusionCOVID-related research in the field of otorhinolaryngology has been studied in terms of descriptive quantitative metrics, which show that academics from around the world are working together to combat this pandemic.

COVID-19 two years on: a review of COVID-19-related empirical research in major tourism and hospitality journals

PurposeThis study aims to provide a timely review of the COVID-19-related empirical research published in 19 quartile one (Q1) and quartile two (Q2) tourism and hospitality journals in social science citation index (SSCI).Design/methodology/approachA total of 407 COVID-19-related empirical papers were collected from the 19 SSCI Q1 and Q2 tourism and hospitality journals via Scopus database. Thematic content analysis was supplemented with Leximancer software to identify the research themes/subthemes, research methods and countries/regions of research.FindingsThe study found studies of COVID-19’s impact on consumer behaviour predominate in number, followed by studies on response actions and recovery strategies, impact on industry or sectors and impact on workers and employees. Based on the research themes identified, a knowledge mapping framework was produced. Over 70% of the studies used quantitative methods with quantitative survey as the dominant method of data collection. The USA and China were found to be the most studied countries.Research limitations/implicationsThe study reviewed empirical research papers until January 2022 and covered most of the COVID-19-related empirical works in the field. An overview of the current state of COVID-19-related empirical research was provided with some critical discussions and suggestions for future research topics.Originality/valueThe findings give researchers a clear index for the current state of the art of COVID-19 research in hospitality and tourism. The paper provides practical implications for industry practitioners to retrieve relevant knowledge from the recent COVID-19-related literature in tourism and hospitality in coping with practical challenges brought by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Research trends and areas of focus on water rights: a bibliometric analysis 1971-2020.

This study investigated the research trends, key areas, and directions of water rights (WRs) using bibliometric data based on the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-E) and Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI). This paper presents a comprehensive review of annual output, research fields, cooperative networks, published journals, and hot spot evolution from 1971 to 2020. The results show that the number of published papers on WRs has an exponential upward trend. This research mainly focuses on water resources, environmental sciences, environmental studies, law, agronomy, and political science. Rutgerd Boelens and Barbara Van Koppen are authors of the most widely published and influential factors in the field. Leo Heller, Priscila Neves-Silva, and Jeroen Vos have been the most recently active authors. University of New Mexico and the United States Department of Agriculture are the organizations with the most publications and total citations, respectively. The USA, China, Australia, the UK, The Netherlands, and Spain are among the most productive countries for WR research. Keyword analysis showed that the study of WRs has gone through three stages: the exploration of laws and regulations, comprehensive management, and technology development and application. Literature citation cluster analysis shows that a highly central article provides a strong link between internal research on WRs. Western USA, trading WRs, and constitutional reform were hot spots before 2010, while economic anthropology, combined effect, public attitude, and integrated assessment modeling have become popular recently. The study results can help experts understand the research progress in WRs.

Unveiling the knowledge domain and emerging trends of olfactory dysfunction with depression or anxiety: A bibliometrics study.

Olfactory dysfunction (OD) accompanied by depression or anxiety is a very common clinical problem, and there has been a growing number of studies on OD with depression or anxiety in recent decades. This study performed bibliometric and visual analyses of the literature on OD with depression or anxiety to derive research trends and identify emerging research foci. Relevant publications were obtained from the Science Citation Index-Expanded and Social Sciences Citation Index in the Web of Science Core Collection databases (2002–2021). CiteSpace and VOSviewer were applied to identify and evaluate research foci and emerging trends in this research domain. The analyses found that the number of publications related to OD with depression or anxiety has increased significantly over the past 20 years, up from 15 in 2002 to 114 in 2022. The country that ranked highest in the number of articles and international cooperation was the United States. The top 10 most frequent keywords were “depression,” “olfaction,” “anxiety,” “dysfunction,” “olfactory bulbectomy,” “olfactory dysfunction,” “Parkinson’s disease,” “odor identification,” “brain,” and “disorders.” Analysis of keywords with the strongest citation bursts revealed that “oxidative stress” is an emerging research hotspot. A timeline chart of the cluster of co-cited references demonstrated that Parkinson’s disease was always a topic of interest in this area of research. This study conducted an objective, comprehensive, and systematic analysis of these publications, and identified the development of trends and hotspots in this research domain. It is hoped that this work will provide scholars, worldwide, with information to assist them in further research and the development of new therapies.

Prevalence and risks of tuberculosis multimorbidity in low-income and middle-income countries: a meta-review

ObjectivesCo-occurrence of tuberculosis (TB) with other chronic conditions (TB multimorbidity) increases complexity of management and adversely affects health outcomes. We aimed to map the prevalence of the co-occurrence of one...

Opioids for pain treatment of cancer: A knowledge maturity mapping.

The conceptual structure of opioids, based on the bibliometric analysis of 4,935 articles of the Web of Science using the following indices: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Conference Proceedings Citation Index-Science (CPCI-S), Conference Proceedings Citation Index- Social Science and Humanities (CPCI-SSH), Book Citation Index-Science (BKCI-S), Book Citation Index-Social Sciences and Humanities (BKCI-SSH) and Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI), was constructed. We analyzed the available articles with the words "Opioids" and "Cancer." We show the evolution and the state of the art in countries where these treatments are implemented. The results were processed identifying the most cited articles to extract the main connections and frequencies of keywords, authors, journals, countries, institutions, and their tendencies and their connection and degree of collaboration. The temporal tendencies, the word cloud, the keyword network, the evolution of words, author's production, and the scientific production by country are analyzed in terms of the increasing frequency in which opioids are employed to treat both cancerous and non-cancerous pain.

Law Reviews, Open Metadata and RSS Feeds

AbstractMost scientific publications have their metadata available as freely accessible and machine-readable information at CrossRef. However, student-edited law reviews have not followed suit with this practice. Consequently, a large part of legal research remains in a blind spot for scientometric analyses and tools. The present paper, by Andreas Nishikawa-Pacher, investigates whether the law reviews’ RSS feeds could serve as equivalent sources for open scholarly metadata. The suitability of RSS feeds from 51 student-edited law reviews (as indexed in Web of Science's Social Science Citation Index) was assessed with regards to three fictitious meta-scientific applications – namely (1) a ‘latest paper’-tool that lists the law reviews’ newest publications with links, abstracts and dates, (2) an author database and (3) a calculation of the mutual citation counts among different law reviews. This paper finds that only 21 law reviews offer functional RSS feeds, and while they were suitable for a basic ‘latest papers’-tool, due to their low metadata quality they cannot aid in generating an author database or in counting the mutual citations among law reviews. The result suggests that law reviews would be advised to adopt digital object identifiers (DOIs) and start depositing openly accessible metadata, for otherwise their scholarly impact and visibility will further decline.

The impact of long-term conditions on disability-free life expectancy: A systematic review.

Although leading causes of death are regularly reported, there is disagreement on which long-term conditions (LTCs) reduce disability-free life expectancy (DFLE) the most. We aimed to estimate increases in DFLE associated with elimination of a range of LTCs. This is a comprehensive systematic review and meta-analysis of studies assessing the effects of LTCs on health expectancy (HE). MEDLINE, Embase, HMIC, Science Citation Index, and Social Science Citation Index were systematically searched for studies published in English from July 2007 to July 2020 with updated searches from inception to April 8, 2021. LTCs considered included: arthritis, diabetes, cardiovascular disease including stroke and peripheral vascular disease, respiratory disease, visual and hearing impairment, dementia, cognitive impairment, depression, cancer, and comorbidity. Studies were included if they estimated HE outcomes (disability-free, active or healthy life expectancy) at age 50 or older for individuals with and without the LTC. Study selection and quality assessment were undertaken by teams of independent reviewers. Meta-analysis was feasible if three or more studies assessed the impact of the same LTC on the same HE at the same age using comparable methods, with narrative syntheses for the remaining studies. Studies reporting Years of Life Lost (YLL), Years of Life with Disability (YLD) and Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs = YLL+YLD) were included but reported separately as incomparable with other HE outcomes (PROSPERO registration: CRD42020196049). Searches returned 6072 unique records, yielding 404 eligible for full text retrieval from which 30 DFLE-related and 7 DALY-related were eligible for inclusion. Thirteen studies reported a single condition, and 17 studies reported on more than one condition (two to nine LTCs). Only seven studies examined the impact of comorbidities. Random effects meta-analyses were feasible for a subgroup of studies examining diabetes (four studies) or respiratory diseases (three studies) on DFLE. From pooled results, individuals at age 65 without diabetes gain on average 2.28 years disability-free compared to those with diabetes (95% CI: 0.57-3.99, p<0.01, I2 = 96.7%), whilst individuals without respiratory diseases gain on average 1.47 years compared to those with respiratory diseases (95% CI: 0.77-2.17, p<0.01, I2 = 79.8%). Eliminating diabetes, stroke, hypertension or arthritis would result in compression of disability. Of the seven longitudinal studies assessing the impact of multiple LTCs, three found that stroke had the greatest effect on DFLE for both genders. This study is the first to systematically quantify the impact of LTCs on both HE and LE at a global level, to assess potential compression of disability. Diabetes, stroke, hypertension and arthritis had a greater effect on DFLE than LE and so elimination would result in compression of disability. Guidelines for reporting HE outcomes would assist data synthesis in the future, which would in turn aid public health policy.

Impact of searching clinical trials registers in systematic reviews of pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical interventions: Reanalysis of meta-analyses.

Systematic reviewers are advised to search trials registers to minimise risk of reporting biases. However, there has been little research on the impact of searching trials registers on the results of meta-analyses. We aimed to evaluate the impact of searching clinical trials registers for systematic reviews of pharmaceutical or non-pharmaceutical interventions. We searched PubMed, Scopus, Science Citation Index and Social Sciences Citation Index, and Education Collection for systematic reviews with meta-analyses indexed from 2 November to 2 December 2020. A random sample of systematic reviews was initially drawn, and for reviews which considered randomised trials eligible for inclusion, which had not searched a trials register, we searched ClinicalTrials.gov, EudraCT, ANZCTR, and the WHO ICTRP search portal for eligible trials. We compared meta-analytic effect estimates before and after including results from additional trials identified. We found additional trials for 63% (63/101) of eligible reviews; however, trials with results that could contribute to a meta-analysis were identified for only 20% (20/101) of the reviews. On average, there was no difference in the meta-analytic effect estimates before versus after adding the new trials. In summary, searching clinical trial registers led to identification of additional trials for many reviews; however, very few trials had results available for inclusion in meta-analyses. Including results from the new trials led to no change in the meta-analytic estimates, on average. Trials registers would be even more valuable to systematic reviewers if more trialists made use of them (i.e., registered their trials and posted results in a timely manner).

Editorial bias in top‐tier education journals: Factors influencing publishable scholarship in China

AbstractThough not rare in the gatekeeping practices of journals, editorial bias in China has received scant scholarly attention. Drawing on in‐depth interviews with 15 academics and 10 editors in the field of education and collecting data on more than 1,522 scholarly articles published by the Chinese journal Educational Research, we assessed the causes and consequences of editorial bias in a subset of the education journals covered by the Chinese Social Sciences Citation Index (CSSCI). Our findings indicate that the editorial biases revealed in some top‐tier Chinese education journals were associated mainly with academic fame, rank, and affiliation as well as personal relationships described by the term guanxi. The causes of these biases include the desire to secure the status of CSSCI‐listed journals, short‐staffed editorial teams, and an inadequate peer‐review system. Further, we found these biases to be associated with three particular negative consequences: slowing the professional development of young academics, allowing the publication of mediocre articles and compromising the Chinese academic environment. We conclude that journal editors, reviewers and academics must work together to safeguard a rigorous and constructive scholarly publishing system in China.

Effectiveness of interventions to improve medication adherence in adults with depressive disorders: a meta-analysis

BackgroundNon-adherence to medication is a major obstacle in the treatment of depressive disorders. We systematically reviewed the literature to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions aimed at improving adherence to medication among adults with depressive disorders with emphasis on initiation and implementation phase.MethodsWe searched Medline, EMBASE, The Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), PsycINFO, Social Science Citation Index and Science Citation Index for randomized or non-randomized controlled trials up to January 2022. Risk of bias was assessed using the criteria of the Cochrane Collaboration. Meta-analyses, cumulative and meta-regression analyses for adherence were conducted.ResultsForty-six trials (n = 24,324) were included. Pooled estimate indicates an increase in the probability of adherence to antidepressants at 6 months with the different types of interventions (OR 1.33; 95% CI: 1.09 to 1.62). The improvement in adherence is obtained from 3 months (OR 1.62, 95% CI: 1.25 to 2.10) but it is attenuated at 12 months (OR 1.25, 95% CI: 1.02 to 1.53). Selected articles show methodological differences, mainly the diversity of both the severity of the depressive disorder and intervention procedures. In the samples of these studies, patients with depression and anxiety seem to benefit most from intervention (OR 2.77, 95% CI: 1.74 to 4.42) and collaborative care is the most effective intervention to improve adherence (OR 1.88, 95% CI: 1.40 to 2.54).ConclusionsOur findings indicate that interventions aimed at improving adherence to medication among adults with depressive disorders are effective up to six months. However, the evidence on the effectiveness of long-term adherence is insufficient and supports the need for further research efforts.Trial registrationInternational Prospective Register for Systematic Reviews (PROSPERO) number: CRD42017065723.

Pregnancy experience in the setting of cystic fibrosis: A systematic review and thematic synthesis.

To synthesize qualitative studies of subjective experience of pregnancy in people with cystic fibrosis. Thematic synthesis of qualitative studies. We searched PUBMED, CINAHL, EMBASE. PsicINFO and Social Sciences Citation Index for qualitative studies published in English, which reported on pregnancy in people with cystic fibrosis. Searches were carried out in March 2021, updated in June 2022. Studies that met the inclusion criteria were appraised for quality using the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) for qualitative research. Data were extracted from the studies, analyse and synthesise using thematic synthesis approach. Thirteen studies were included in the review and 'Walking on a wire' framework was conceptualized. We found three analytical themes: (1) desire for information related to pregnancy in cystic fibrosis, (2) factors at play in decision-making related to pregnancy for people with cystic fibrosis and (3) pregnancy experience and eight descriptive themes: (1) information topics, (2) CF healthcare team/PwCF as a provider of reproductive health information, (3) information timing, (4) barriers to information delivery, (5) barriers to decision-making and stresses relating to the process of trying to conceive, (6) environmental factors, (7) coping with challenges, and (8) moving towards parenthood. For people with cystic fibrosis, pregnancy is a complex pathway: the amount of knowledge about cystic fibrosis and sexual and reproductive health, barriers to pregnancy and environmental factors provides the background to decision-making. Moreover, coping with pregnancy is a challenging experience, where they have to mediate between the physical and emotional implications of planning a pregnancy and the limitations imposed by the chronic health conditions. Understanding the psychological experiences of people with cystic fibrosis (PwCF) will improve future research and practice. Education about sexual and reproductive health and psychosocial care programmes are necessary to help PwCF deal with the challenges related to pregnancy. Hospitals should enhance the development of specific programmes to promote the well-being of individuals with CF who are planning a pregnancy.

Sustainability in Social Enterprise Research: A Systematic Literature Review

Given the noteworthy contribution to the global socio-economic development, research on social enterprises (SE) has gained prominence over past two decades. Making a clear departure from for-profit counterparts, the core purpose of SEs is to deliver a social mission while at the same time staying financially viable and as a consequence, “sustainability” is strongly embedded in their core drive of existence. Rapidly sprouting body of literature on SE posits that “sustainability” is intensely coincided with “social enterprises.” Although “sustainability” has been a buzz word in the context of SE, lacking of systematization and categorization of knowledge hinders the advancement of SE specific research. Consequently, the primary objective of this paper is systematization and categorization of the extant knowledge on sustainability in SE research context. The study carried-out a systematic literature survey from reputed databases; Scopus, Social Science Citation Index and Science Direct. Removing the repetitions, 136 papers on sustainability was compiled for analysis. The analytical approach was two-fold: First, a citation analysis was performed in order to evaluate the prominent, emerging and popular sustainability-based research areas in the extant body of knowledge in the field. Second, a thematic analysis was performed to analyze and interpret explicit themes on which sustainability concept has been investigated. Paper discovered six themes that the sustainability concept has been researched through significant research popularity disparities can be witnessed among the discovered themes. Since this paper identifies several research gaps and inconsistencies, it noticeably sets path for future research on the concept of sustainability in SE.

Judging Personality Disorder: A Systematic Review of Clinician Attitudes and Responses to Borderline Personality Disorder.

It has been suggested that the diagnosis of borderline personality disorder (BPD) is associated with particularly stigmatizing connotations, particularly among mental health professionals. The goal of this study was to synthesize quantitative studies investigating the attitudes and responses of clinicians to BPD and to appraise the methodological quality of these studies. A systematic search was carried out using MEDLINE Complete, CINAHL Complete, PsychoINFO, PsychARTICLES, Scopus, Social Sciences Citation Index, and Academic Search Complete. Study quality was rated using an adapted tool. This review included 37 papers involving an estimated 8196 participants: 21 cross-sectional survey studies, 5 studies assessing training workshops, 5 studies assessing countertransference, and 6 experimental studies. The methodological quality of the studies was mixed, with many differing measures with questionable validity used. Negative attitudes toward BPD continue to be a problem to differing degrees among clinical staff. Although this issue is most prominent among psychiatric nurses, the results of this review highlight evidence of negative attitudes across all mental health professions as well as potentially in professionals working in physical health settings. Various clinician-level factors may play a role in the development and maintenance of such attitudes. Greater exposure to patients with BPD and attendance at training programs have been found to be associated with improved attitudes. Professionals require regular training concerning BPD that is sufficiently evidence-based.

A Bibliometric Analysis of Early Childhood Education Research: 1976-2022

Yaşam boyu öğrenme ve insan gelişimi için bir temel olarak erken çocukluk eğitiminin önemi, ekonomistler, çocuk gelişimciler, psikologlar ve eğitimciler dahil olmak üzere farklı bakış açılarından incelenmiştir. Bu incelemeler sonucunda dünya çapında erken çocukluk eğitimi hakkında önemli miktarda bilimsel araştırma yayımlanmıştır. Bu araştırma ile WoS ‘da SSCI veri tabanında, erken çocukluk eğitimi üzerine yayımlanmış bilimsel çalışmaların bibliyometrik analizini gerçekleştirmek amaçlanmıştır. Araştırmada, betimsel yöntemlerden tarama modeli kullanılmış ve bibiliyometrik analiz tekniği uygulanmıştır. Araştırmada 1976-2022 yılları arasında yayımlanan 7.373 akademik çalışma analiz edilmiştir. Yapılan analizler sonucuna göre; erken çocukluk eğitimi ile ilgili yayımlanan akademik çalışmaların artış oranı en sık yayın yapılan dil en çok yapılan akademik çalışma, en üretken kurum, en fazla akademik yayımın olduğu dergiler, en çok akademik yayım üreten ülkeler, akademik yayınların atıf sayıları, en çok kullanılan anahtar kelimeler ortaya çıkmıştır. Bu araştırmanın erken çocukluk eğitimi alanında bilimsel çalışma yapmayı planlayan araştırmacılara bir perspektif geliştireceği düşünülmektedir.

Knowledge Mapping of Enterprise Network Research in China: A Visual Analysis Using CiteSpace.

Enterprise Network (EN) has increasingly gained popularity in academia. Over the past few decades, a substantial amount of EN studies have been published in China. Drawing upon a sample of 603 papers retrieved from the Chinese Social Sciences Citation Index database (CSSCI) between 1998 and 2020, this study aims to delve into the status quo, knowledge base, research focus, and evolutionary trends of EN research in China. A multifaceted bibliometric analysis was performed using CiteSpace. The findings mainly indicate that the research on EN in China has a clear development context, and the research content gradually changes from macro to micro. In addition to foreign Social Network theories, the research results of domestic scholars have become the basic knowledge in this field. The research includes these topics: the conceptualization of EN, EN as indicators of enterprise development, EN’s impact on start-ups, mechanisms of EN’s effect and governance of EN. The potential direction for future research has been identified as the integration between EN and other forms of networks, and the structure of EN.

Croatian Journals Covered by SCIE/SSCI

The study analysed Croatian journals covered by Web of Science (WoS) Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) and Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) over three time periods. The first two periods were the periods of inclusion of Croatian journals in SCIE/SSCI, and the third period was the period of exclusion of journals. In 1999, there were 12 Croatian journals indexed, and in 2011, mostly as a result of the WoS Regional Expansion Programme, there were 50 Croatian journals covered by SCIE/SSCI. The IF range of the Croatian journals showed an increase over the years from 1999 to 2011, but most journals remained in the fourth quartile (Q4). Although Croatia is considered as a country from the scientific periphery, in comparison with neighbouring Italy, Hungary, Slovenia, and Serbia in 2005, 2011, and 2018, Croatia had a permanently strong journal representation in JCR.

Dyslexia: A Bibliometric and Visualization Analysis.

Dyslexia is a disorder characterized by an impaired ability to understand written and printed words or phrases. Epidemiological longitudinal data show that dyslexia is highly prevalent, affecting 10–20% of the population regardless of gender. This study aims to provide a detailed overview of research status and development characteristics of dyslexia from types of articles, years, countries, institutions, journals, authors, author keywords, and highly cited papers. A total of 9,166 publications have been retrieved from the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) and Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-E) from 2000 to 2021. The United States of America, United Kingdom, and Germany were the top three most productive countries in terms of the number of publications. China, Israel, and Japan led the Asia research on dyslexia. University of Oxford had the most publications and won first place in terms of h-index. Dyslexia was the most productive journal in this field and Psychology was the most used subject category. Keywords analysis indicated that “developmental dyslexia,” “phonological awareness,” children and fMRI were still the main research topics. “Literacy,” “rapid automatized naming (RAN),” “assessment,” “intervention,” “meta-analysis,” “Chinese,” “executive function,” “morphological awareness,” “decoding,” “dyscalculia,” “EEG,” “Eye tracking,” “rhythm,” “bilingualism,” and “functional connectivity” might become the new research hotspots.

Systematic review on chronic non-communicable disease in disaster settings

BackgroundNon-communicable diseases (NCDs) constitute the leading cause of mortality globally. Low and middle-income countries (LMICs) not only experience the largest burden of humanitarian emergencies but are also disproportionately affected by NCDs, yet primary focus on the topic is lagging. We conducted a systematic review on the effect of humanitarian disasters on NCDs in LMICs assessing epidemiology, interventions, and treatment.MethodsA systematic search in MEDLINE, MEDLINE (PubMed, for in-process and non-indexed citations), Social Science Citation Index, and Global Health (EBSCO) for indexed articles published before December 11, 2017 was conducted, and publications reporting on NCDs and humanitarian emergencies in LMICs were included. We extracted and synthesized results using a thematic analysis approach and present the results by disease type. The study is registered at PROSPERO (CRD42018088769).ResultsOf the 85 included publications, most reported on observational research studies and almost half (48.9%) reported on studies in the Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMRO), with scant studies reporting on the African and Americas regions. NCDs represented a significant burden for populations affected by humanitarian crises in our findings, despite a dearth of data from particular regions and disease categories. The majority of studies included in our review presented epidemiologic evidence for the burden of disease, while few studies addressed clinical management or intervention delivery. Commonly cited barriers to healthcare access in all phases of disaster and major disease diagnoses studied included: low levels of education, financial difficulties, displacement, illiteracy, lack of access to medications, affordability of treatment and monitoring devices, and centralized healthcare infrastructure for NCDs. Screening and prevention for NCDs in disaster-prone settings was supported. Refugee status was independently identified both as a risk factor for diagnosis with an NCD and conferring worse morbidity.ConclusionsAn increased focus on the effects of, and mitigating factors for, NCDs occurring in disaster-afflicted LMICs is needed. While the majority of studies included in our review presented epidemiologic evidence for the burden of disease, research is needed to address contributing factors, interventions, and means of managing disease during humanitarian emergencies in LMICs.

Robotic versus Laparoscopic Gastrectomy for Gastric Cancer: An Updated Systematic Review.

Background and Objectives: Gastrectomy with D2 lymphadenectomy is the standard surgical treatment with curative intent for patients with gastric cancer (GC). Over the last three decades, surgeons have been increasingly adopting laparoscopic surgery for GC, due to its better short-term outcomes. In particular, laparoscopic gastrectomy (LG) has been routinely used for early gastric cancer (EGC) treatment. However, LG suffers from technical limitations and drawbacks, such as a two-dimensional surgical field of view, limited movement of laparoscopic tools, unavoidable physiological tremors and discomfort for operating surgeon. Therefore, robotic surgery has been developed to address such limitations. Materials and Methods: We performed a systematic review following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyzes (PRISMA) guidelines in order to investigate the benefits and harms of robotic gastrectomy (RG) compared to the LG. PubMed/MEDLINE, Scopus, Cochrane Library (Cochrane Database of Systematic Re-views, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials-CENTRAL) and Web of Science (Science and Social Science Citation Index) databases were used to search all related literature. Results: The 7 included meta-analyses covered an approximately 20 years-study period (2000–2020). Almost all studies included in the meta-analyses were retrospective ones and originated from Asian countries (China and Korea, in particular). Examined overall population ranged from 3176 to 17,712 patients. If compared to LG, RG showed both operative advantages (operative time, estimated blood loss, number of retrieved lymph nodes) and perioperative ones (time to first flatus, time to restart oral intake, length of hospitalization, overall complications, Clavien-Dindo (CD) ≥ III complications, pancreatic complications), in the absence of clear differences of oncological outcomes. However, costs of robotic approach appear significant. Conclusions: It is impossible to make strong recommendations, due to the statistical weakness of the included studies. Further randomized, possibly multicenter trials are strongly recommended, if we want to have our results confirmed.