Abstract
The aim of this article was to establish the geographic origin and the proportion of full length and research articles in each of four journals over a five-year period:
References
Origin and type of articles published in four mainstream orthodontic journals: a five-year study
From Volume 10, Issue 2, April 2017 | Pages 73-76
Article
Research is a fundamental tool that allows the practice and progression of evidence-based dentistry. This is not a new concept to the dental profession; however, we are finding ourselves becoming ever more reliant on supporting the treatment we provide with the best available scientific evidence. Previous studies have found that, over the last decade, there has been an increase in the publication of orthodontic literature of greater quality, such as randomized controlled trials, systematic reviews and meta-analyses.1,2
Orthodontic periodicals can be regarded as the main method to disseminate scientific information relevant to the specialty. New techniques and concepts that are published in revered scientific journals aim to advance our clinical knowledge, and thus ultimately benefit our patients. In a truly global orthodontic community, conventional geographic barriers no longer remain. Journals are widely available through electronic databases and institutional collections, making research more accessible, and easier to share.
An increase in the number of international and national orthodontic journals has also contributed to the volume of scientific publications available. Parameters are available to enable researchers to assess the quality of each journal. The impact factor (IF) is a ratio of two elements; the numerator which is the number of citations in the current year to items published in the previous two years, and the denominator which is the number of articles and reviews published in the same two years within a given journal.3 The IF is not without criticism and an alternative method is the SCImago Journal Ranking (SJR) which aims to take into account the quality of the citations as well as the quantity.4
Editors will aim to publish articles depending on the quality and originality of the research, clinical significance, and subscriber interest. The peer-review process has been established to limit bias. However, studies have shown that significant bias can still occur in terms of gender of author, the language the article is written in, and the geographic locations of the authors.5,6,7,8 This bias may lead to valuable research not being published.
In our study we have looked at publications in four mainstream orthodontic journals. The aims of our study were:
Material and methods
Four mainstream orthodontic journals were selected from the top 10 journals in the SJR Ranking: Angle Orthodontist (AO), American Journal of Orthodontics (AJODO), European Journal of Orthodontics (EJO) and Journal of Orthodontics (JO) (Table 1). Two authors (AU and KT) carried out online searches of articles published in each of these journals over a 5-year period from January 2009 to December 2013. Two journals were assessed per author. Full length articles were considered for inclusion. Editorials, abstracts, letters to the editor, and book reviews were excluded.
| SCImago Journal Ranking | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Journal | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 |
| AJODO | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| AO | 2 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 2 |
| EJO | 3 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| JO | 6 | 10 | 8 | 6 | 6 |
These articles were each categorized and documented according to:
Data was entered into a Microsoft Excel 2013 (Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, Washington, USA) spreadsheet and frequency distributions were calculated. Statistical analysis was carried out with SPSS Statistics (IBM, Armonk, New York, USA). The Pearson Chi-Squared method was used for independence testing with the significance level at 0.05.
Results
A total of 2967 articles were included in the study. The number of articles per journal demonstrated wide variation, with AJODO having the greatest number of publications considered (1199) followed by AO (773), EJO (563) and JO (162).
Origin of publication
The highest number of articles came from Europe (38%). Asia published the second most (27%), followed by North America (20%) and South America (12%). Oceania and Africa contributed only 2% and 1% of the articles, respectively (Figure 1).
Sixty-eight countries published at least one article. The United States of America (USA) had the highest number of articles (Figure 2). The 477 articles contributed by the USA amounted to 17.67% of the total included in the study. Brazil was the major contributor from South America with 303 publications. The United Kingdom (UK) published the most articles from Europe, whilst Japan was the equivalent from Asia.
Articles from ‘home’ continent
The EJO (66.6%) and JO (63%) had approximately three times more publications from their base continent when compared with AO (20.7%) and AJODO (29.7%). Pearson Chi-squared test demonstrated that the European-based journals, EJO and JO, had a significantly higher proportion of publications from their base continent (p<0.001).
Type of publication
There seemed to be variations between the journals in the types of articles published (Table 2). EJO and AO seemed to favour research type articles, as these articles formed 98.8% and 95%, respectively, of their total publications. AJODO and JO had much more variation in the article types published, with research articles forming 78.4% and 59.9% of their included publications. Using Pearson Chi-squared testing, there was a statistically significant difference in these proportions (p<0.001).
| Origin of Publication | Type of Publication | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Journal | Home Continent | Other Continent | Research | Other |
| AO | 160 | 613 | 734 | 39 |
| EJO | 375 | 188 | 556 | 7 |
| JO | 102 | 60 | 97 | 65 |
| AJODO | 356 | 843 | 940 | 259 |
| P value | <0.001 | <0.001 | ||
Discussion
The EJO and JO were found to have a significantly larger proportion of publications from their base continent. The reasons for these findings are likely to be multifactorial. It is possible that article submissions from the base continent of these journals may be greater; therefore the proportion of publications from their respective base continents may be reflective of this. Although there may be a suggestion of geographic bias given our findings, this may not be the case as the peer review process is usually carried out using a double-blinded process where the reviewers and authors, along with their affiliations, are unidentified.9,10,11 To assess geographic bias we would require to know the nationality of the reviewers, however, this information was not available to us. Interestingly, the AJODO and AO, both based in North America, had a majority of publications from outside of their home continent. Geographic bias does not appear to be an issue with these periodicals, and this is contrary to suggestions that reviewers from the USA may favour ‘home’ submissions, which was found in another study.8 The differences in geographic origin of publications may be due to a more global readership and appeal for AJODO and AO, making them a more likely target for academics to publish their research findings.
The IF or SJR profile of each journal may influence researchers as to where they chose to submit their findings. The SJR was the factor looked at in this study and the AJODO and AO are consistently rated above the EJO and JO. This may draw more submissions from outside their home continent in order to raise the profile of their research through the increased chance of citations and recognition.
Overall, there were 68 countries publishing literature in the study. The USA had the highest total number of publications in the five-year period, with 477 contributing to 18% of overall research papers. This could be due to an increased number of orthodontic institutions within the USA, resulting in more academics and residents who are able to contribute articles to be considered for publication. It is also possible that a few well-funded and equipped organizations within some countries may carry out significantly more research than others. Higher income countries may have a better education system and are thus able to have clinical activity as well as a research output. Conversely, lower income countries may experience difficulties in having their research published in leading journals.12 Out of the top 10 publishing countries, seven were ranked in the first quintile for Gross Domestic Product per capita based on purchasing power parity according to figures from the World Bank,13 which would support the previous statement.
It was found that the AO and EJO contained a significantly larger proportion of research-based publications. It appears that the scope of these journals is different from JO and AJODO. Articles describing case reports and clinical techniques have a valuable role to play in developing the specialty, and these can be the basis on which further research is carried out. Editorial boards, as well as readership feedback, are likely to play a significant role in outlining the types of articles that feature in the different journals.
It was also demonstrated that the four journals had significantly differing numbers of publications in the five-year period, with AJODO publishing 1199 articles and JO publishing 162 articles in the same timeframe. Several potential reasons for these findings exist, including the number of articles per issue of the journal, and the frequency of journal publication, with JO having quarterly journal publications, AO and EJO having bimonthly journal releases, and AJODO being a monthly periodical, as well as having supplementary publications.
The methodology of this study used the affiliation of the first author to identify the geographic origin of the research. A proportion of the articles will have multiple authors, and these authors may be from different institutions and therefore adding some difficulty in establishing the country of origin for the research. Although there are no specific guidelines for the sequence in which authors are named,14 the first author is likely to have contributed the most to the publication and this was the rationale for our methodology. A further limitation of our study is that researchers in orthodontics may choose to publish their research in non-orthodontic journals. We have only selected four mainstream orthodontic journals, and therefore we are only including a sample of the orthodontic literature in circulation.
The results of this study highlight some interesting differences both in terms of the type of articles published between journals, as well as the quantity of research being published between different geographic regions. Findings also demonstrate that journals may be more likely to publish more articles from a particular region, and possible explanations for this have been discussed.
Conclusions
The USA was the highest publishing country followed by Brazil, the UK and Japan. Europe was the continent with the greatest number of cumulative publications across the four journals. There was a significant difference in the proportion of articles published from the home continent of the four journals. There was significant difference in the proportion of research-based publications between the four journals.