A bibliometric analysis of the spine journals

Abstract

Background

Spine is a rapidly growing branch with fully-dedicated peer-reviewed journals. Journal impact factor (JIF), speed of publication, and readership are some critical factors affecting the author’s choice for submission. This study aimed to find the bibliometric data of spine journals.

Method

Fourteen Spine journals in NCBI (National centre for Biotechnology information, USA) database, meeting the inclusion criterion were analyzed for original articles, collected via stratified sampling from each issue of the journal. The dates to submission (DS), acceptance (DA), and publication (DP), study design, corresponding author’s details like-subject specialization and country of affiliation were recorded for each original article. Data on JIF, number of issues/years, open access availability (OA), article processing charges (APC) were also retrieved. Correlation and geographic plot were used to display the findings.

Results

The median (interquartile range) time for submission to publication/total time (TT) in spine journals was 175 (120–313) days with a submission to acceptance time of 107 (66–168) days and acceptance to publication time of 54 (20–170). Fifty-seven percent of the journals had APC, and all had options for OA. A significant correlation was noted between all determinants of publication speed and the Scimago Journal rankings (SJR) (AT: r = 0.238, PT: r = 0.074, TT: r = 0.288, p < 0.001). Amongst the author affiliations, the USA (37.5%) and Japan (18.6%) had the maximum contributions. Furthermore, 57.4% of authors were orthopaedicians, and 14.4% were neurosurgeons. Retrospective and prospective cohort studies were the standard study designs (48% vs. 20.9%), while clinical trials accounted for 5.8%.

Conclusion

Spine journals had comparable publication speed with other biomedical journals; all spine journals had OA options. Observational study dominates the pattern in spine research. The contribution is mainly from orthopaedician, but the trend is changing towards collaborative research with neurosurgeons.

1. Introduction

Publication in journals is a significant way to disseminate knowledge among peers in the community and prospects for clinicians to interpose shreds of evidence for better patient care. This holds true across all medical specialties.¹ The spine is a rapidly establishing branch with fully dedicated peer-reviewed journals globally. The submission process to a journal has swiftly transformed from the conventional “pen and paper” to the modern electronic system since the revolution of the internet.² Even though this renovation has helped reduce the complete publication cycle timeframe, the total time since a manuscript is dispatched from the author’s desk to appear in the public domain is long enough and may not be gratifying at all. The introduction of the advance online publication (AOP) and open access (OA) has provided relief. Still, many have article processing charges (APC) that are a burden to the young researchers, mainly from economically constrained countries. The articles for spine-related topics have been widely published in the orthopedic and neurosurgical journals apart from the broad readership general journals. Yet, as a spine surgeon, authors yearn to publish in high-quality spine-specific journals. Most of the bibliometric data about the journals are given on their home page. Still, a comprehensive compilation of this can substantially benefit the researchers in choosing their target journal and getting their hard work published. Publication time lag (submission to publication) of a journal may influence the authors’ decision to submit or publish their work.¹

There are some bibliometric studies related to other specific subjects like plastic surgery,^2,3 ophthalmology,¹ facial,⁴ and Indian biological journals.⁵ Still, the spine is a domain with a lot of sharing among the orthopedics and neurosurgery, along with other allied branches. Hence, there is a need to analyze the spine journals to provide the authors with sufficient information to get the best-fit journal for their topic and anticipate publication time and decision on their manuscripts. This study aims to shed light on various bibliometric informatics like publication speed, journal impact factor (JIF), manuscript and authorship details (indirectly readership) of various spine journals.

2. Methods

Spine journals listed in the NCBI (National centre for Biotechnology information, USA) data base were sorted out. The journals were first screened for the availability of dates in regards to submission (DS), acceptance (DA), and publication (DP). Subsequently, other informatics such as their JIF, number of issues/volumes per year, the number of articles per volume were retrieved. Only journals publishing spine or spinal cord related articles were included in our study. Articles published in neurology/neurosurgical/orthopedics or any other journal having a mix of the spine and non-spine pertaining topics or not displaying the relevant dates were excluded. Data including the dates (DS, DA, DP), JIF, APC, OA, corresponding author’s (CA) details-subject specialization and the country of affiliation, and finally the study design (without assigning any level of evidence) were compiled on an excel sheet. Only original articles from the inclusive journals published in the calendar year 2019 were used to capture the data. To maintain uniformity across the journals, we selected a maximum of 50 articles from one journal. In journals having <50 original articles in all the issues of 2019, all articles were selected. If a journal had >50 articles for the year 2019 (approximated by “number of issues” X “number of original articles in the first issue”), then we divided 50 by the number of issues to generate “a.” This “a” was rounded to the nearest whole number, and it was the number of articles selected from each issue/volume of the journal. For example, if a journal had six volumes, then 50/6 = 8 (nearest whole number), and eight original articles were selected from each volume of that journal. Again, the consecutive original articles regardless of sub-heading from the beginning were selected to maintain uniformity.⁵ All other article types and articles in special issues were also excluded.

Two researchers independently (MJ, RVR) carried out the data extraction, and a third investigator (MB) verified and resolved the discrepancies in discussion with them. The peer-review time or acceptance time (AT) was the “time from submission to acceptance” (inclusive of time for revision) and publication time (PT) as the “time from acceptance to publication” (AOP/electronic/print in case the electronic medium was not there) and total time (TT) was “time to submission to publication”.^3,5

2.1. Statistical analysis

Data analysis was carried out using the software R version 3.6.1. The categorical variables were expressed as frequency or percentages. The data were analyzed for normality check using the Shapiro-Wilk test. For non-parametric data, numerical variables were expressed as median ± Interquartile range (IQR). Spearman’s correlation was used to analyze the correlation between numerical variables. P < 0.05 is regarded as statistically significant. A geographic plot was used to demonstrate the graph.

3. Results

Out of the 25 exclusive spine journals identified in the NCBI database, 14 journals met the inclusion criteria and were analyzed. The flow diagram of the journal selection and factors analyzed are depicted in Fig. 1. A total of 517 original articles published in the year 2019 were evaluated from these 14 journals. Data was collected from all issues except for “The Journal of Craniovertebral Junction and Spine,” which had required dates only in the last of the four issues that were included.

Fig. 1.

Flow chart for journal inclusion with analyzed variables.

The overall median (IQR) TT in the spine journals was 175 (120–313) days with an AT of 107 (66–168) days and PT of 54 (20–170) days. “The Journal of Cranio-Vertebral Junction and Spine” had the shortest while “Clinical Spine Journal” had the highest TT. Among the journals, on average, AT accounted for 61% of the TT, whereas PT accounted for 39% of the TT. Four journals have PT more than AT was “Asian Spine Journal,” “Spine Deformity,” “The Journal of Craniovertebral Junction and Spine,” and “Spine.” The details are given in Table 1.

Table 1.

Bibliometric characteristics of the journals.

Sl No.	Journal Name	Submission to Acceptance (AT)	Acceptance to Publication (PT)	Submission to Publication (TT)	AT	PT	Impact factor (SJR)	Issues per year	No. of Articles	OA	APC
		Median (IQR) in Days			Percentage
1	Spine	105 (70.3–149.2)	202 (185.0–220.7)	309.5 (270.2–339.7)	34	66	1.59	24	48	Yes	Yes
2	Asian spinal journal	66.5 (47–95.7)	115 (97.7–133.7)	181 (159.5–231.0)	37	63	0.64	6	48	Yes	No
3	Journal of spine surgery	93.0 (65.5–124.0)	63.5 (34.7–94.0)	160 (125.5–199.5)	58	42	0.639	4	48	Yes	Yes
4	Spine surgery and related research	69 (46.5–104.0)	35 (26.5–51.5)	114 (85.5–152.5)	61	39	0.309	4	41	Yes	Yes
5	Clinical spine journal	211 (146.0–261.0)	187 (132.0–223.0)	427 (357.0–457.0)	49	51	0.87	10	47	Yes	Yes
6	Spinal cord	117.5 (91.5–158.7)	23 (16.0–3275)	136.5 (114.0–203.5)	86	14	0.72	12	48	Yes	No
7	Spinal Cord Case Series	91 (49.0–128.5)	21 (16.0–34.5)	110 (69.5–154.0)	83	17	0.11	12	29	Yes	No
8	JOR Spine	100.5 (75.0–166.7)	23.5 (5.2–47.0)	149.5 (99.5–212.2)	67	33	0	4	16	Yes	Yes
9	Journal of Craniovertebral Junction	17 (8.25–29.7)	57.5 (36.0–78.0)	73.5 (43.2–128.0)	23	77	0.43	4	8 (1 issue)	Yes	No
10	Neurospine	77 (48.0–111.0)	44 (21.5–71.5)	109 (87.0–206.5)	71	29	0.92	4	37	Yes	No
11	Scoliosis and Spinal Disorders	306 (190.0)∗	15 (11.0)∗	321 (201.0)∗	95	5	1.05	1	3	Yes	Yes
12	Spine deformity	188.5 (127.0–257.0)	222 (204.0–240.7)	413.5 (337.2–473.0)	46	54	0.79	6	48	Yes	No
13	The Spine Journal	106 (71.0–144.0)	5 (3.0–8.7)	113 (83.0–156.2)	94	6	1.12	12	48	Yes	Yes
14	European spine journal	157.5 (109.7–193.7)	10.5 (6.2–21.7)	172 (127.5–218.2)	92	8	1.39	12	48	Yes	Yes

Fifty seven percent (n = 8) of the journals had APC for publication, and all journals (n = 14) had options for open access (Table 1). A significant correlation was noted between all determinants of publication speed (SA: r = 0.238, AP: r = 0.074, TT: r = 0.288; p < 0.001) and the scimago journal rankings (SJR).

The authorship distribution across the countries in these journals is represented in the bubble chart (Fig. 2). The USA had the maximum contribution (37.5%), followed by Japan (18.6%), which had sole representation in one particular journal- “Journal of Spine Surgery and Related Research.” However, the representation of countries in the top three indexed journals is depicted in Fig. 3. Among the specialties of CA-more than half (57.4%) were orthopaedician, followed by neurosurgeons (14.4%) and clinicians from physical medicine and rehabilitation or physiotherapy (11.6%). The rest had authors from different fields such as anaesthesiology, respiratory medicine, medicine, and anatomy.

Fig. 2.

Global map displaying the country of origin of the corresponding authors among the total articles (courtesy https://images.all-free-download.com/images/graphiclarge/simple_world_maps_vector_578782.jpg).

Fig. 3.

Global map displaying the country of origin of the corresponding authors among the top three impact journals (courtesy- https://images.all-free-download.com/images/graphiclarge/simple_world_maps_vector_578782.jpg).

Among the pattern of studies across the journals, the maximum was observation studies. Forty-eight percent were retrospective cohort studies, and 20.9% were prospective cohort studies. Randomized and non-randomized controlled trials accounted for 5.8% of all study patterns. The details of the study patterns are given in Fig. 4.

Fig. 4.

Pie-chart displaying the pattern of studies.

4. Discussion

4.1. Why spine journal?

The spine is a rapidly evolving specialty globally, with a steady rise in the number of surgeons from both disciplines, viz. orthopedic surgery and neurosurgery. In many countries, it is an established specialty where, in some, it is in the establishing phase, but its growing popularity has made the boundaries between the subjects hazy. There remains a crucial interplay among surgeons from both specialties. While neurosurgeons are classically more trained in the microsurgical work; the orthopaedician more conversed with bone biology and biomechanics.⁶ A new breed of trained spine fellows who form an amalgamation of both help in reducing these intrinsic differences. Nevertheless, surgeons cultivate technical skills in several fields like-minimally invasive techniques, computer-guided surgery, or deformity correction based on their acquired competencies.⁷

The traditional way of dissemination of knowledge among spine surgeons has been in the form of articles from individual sections of orthopedics and neurosurgery journals.⁸ Today, there are “spine-specific” fully dedicated journals that propagate spine research. Their numbers and JIF are also rising slowly. Hence, a bibliometric analysis of these spine journals can be of paramount importance to the greenhorn and the experienced in the particular field for choosing the target journal for their research. Besides JIF, publication and readership speed are key facets that attract the authors to a particular journal. The informetric is a publisher domain, and we could include only those journals where the dates are easily accessible.⁹

4.2. Publication speed and delay

The publication cycle is a mammoth task comprising of two important phases. The first phase begins from receiving the manuscript from authors till acceptance by the journal that necessitates a great deal of time and effort from the editorial team to fasten the screening and peer review process. The authors also hold their role to comply with journal requirements and quickly respond to queries and revisions. The second phase is post-acceptance to publication time, which mainly depends on the speed of editing, proofreading, condensing the matter in journal space, and page setting where the number of issues each journal has per year also makes variations. Hence, the speed of publication is dependent on multiple factors.^10,11

Our study found that spine journals had a median (IQR) TT of 175 (120–313) days with an AT of 107 (66–168) days and PT of 54 (20–170) days. In a one-year analysis of “Open access Head and Face Medicine Journal”, Stamm et al. found the mean AT and mean TT was 95.9 days and 99.3 days, respectively.⁴ Similarly, Labaranis et al. found median TT in months as 10.3 (8–12.6) with a median AT the time of 4.6 and PT of 5.4 months.² Shah et al. observed that the PT for journals having AOP was significantly less compared to the journals that did not have AOP (29.5 [19.6, 50.6] vs. 254 [216, 375]).⁵

Sometimes publication delays can be detrimental as it can deprive the author of career and credentials opportunities. In many countries, including ours (India), career mandates compulsory publication in the set time frame. Availability of AOP in many reputed journals was a promising trend to curtail these time frame for early dissemination of clinical evidence that guides clinicians and service providers with the latest scientific knowledge. Editors play a crucial role in balancing the “fast publications” and the quality of scientific knowledge that is generated.^10,11

4.3. Effect of open access, APC, funding

The Internet has provided a galaxy of opportunities for the researcher to acquire or distribute knowledge and the publisher to spread the information in their journal in the form of open access.¹² Our results revealed that all spine journals had open access options. The introduction of a “pure open-access” model has obligated many print journals towards a hybrid model. Since many spine journals have an “age” of few years till the present time, it may be too early to find any change in JIF considering the accessibility to a wider population of readers globally and the higher theoretical chance of citation. We did not study the level of evidence and mode of publication. Assad et al. did not find any difference in level I evidence articles for journals having a compulsory OA compared to subscription-based journals.³ A vital benefit of this model is that information will be easily accessible to researchers. Sabrawal et al. found no significant difference in JIF, citation count, and self-citation proportion in cross-sectional studies of OA, hybrid, and subscription-based orthopedic journals in the year 2012.¹³

The introduction of APC is debatable, but there needs to be a means of paying incurring expenses for OA. Stamm et al. reported that the introduction of APC in March 2006 adversely affected the submission rate of head and face medicine journals, as found in their study.⁴ These data can only retrieve from the publisher’s side and beyond our purview.

4.4. Study design

We found that most of the studies in spine journals are observational (retrospective cohorts, cross-sectional and prospective cohorts) compared to the non-randomized or randomized controlled studies (RCT). Amiri et al. also reported a predominance of lower-level studies (level III and IV) in “The Spine Journal” (62.1%) in their research in 2010.¹⁴ They attributed this to the difficulties of conducting higher-level studies in spine surgery. Cvetanovich et al. also discussed that orthopedic cases’ nature makes conduction of RCT very challenging, if not impossible.¹⁵ Technically, testing a new surgical intervention with an established equal efficacy could be an ethical hitch and hence the least feasible study design.¹⁶ Solomon et al. also observed other factors that hinder RCTs include patient preferences, uncommon conditions, and lack of community equipoise.¹⁷ Nevertheless, level III and IV studies are invaluable in spine research where chronic disease processes and long-term outcomes need to be constantly assessed efficiently and cost-effectively.⁶ Donnally et al., in 2019 reviewed the “100 most influential papers on spine fracture” and found that 36 studies were level IV followed by level V (28), level III (16), Level II (11), and lastly, level I (9).¹⁸

Park et al. studied the publication characteristics in “The Spine Journal” over ten years and observed an increasing number of higher-level evidence studies (level I-II), but the growing number of lower evidence studies outnumbered them in terms of percentage.⁶ Another exciting finding the authors brought out was that funding had improved the level of evidence in our analysis. The odds ratio (OR) of public-funded studies were more than privately funded (OR-4.34, 2.76) in comparison to the non-funded studies. However, we did not segregate the studies based on funding. Hollenberg et al. audited the “Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery” and found that the publication trend has been towards higher levels of evidence in spine research. This specific journal provides the level of evidence in informatics.¹⁹ Some authors have tried to differentiate study patterns based on clinical outcomes, surgical techniques, biomechanical studies.¹⁸ Stamm et al. found that there is also no significant correlation between article type (original, case reports) and the time of peer-review.⁴ We studied only original research articles for maintaining uniformity. Assad et al. found that majority of the article type in their study as case series followed by retrospective cohort studies (40% vs. 13%). Interestingly, they also observed-case series had the shortest SP, followed by systematic reviews, cross-sectional studies, and lastly, RCT (median, 9.8, 10, 10.2, and 11.7 months, respectively.³

4.5. Impact of the journal impact factor

The JIF depends essentially on the journal’s age and the citation score, besides a host of other factors.²⁰ Since many of the spine journals except a few are “new,” i.e., less than twenty years old, their JIF is not so significant, unlike the orthopedics/neurosurgery journals. The JIF is provided by clarivate analytics but in absence of the data for most of our spine journals, we took the Scimago Journal ranking (SJR), which though not as robust, is an alternative to the JIF.²¹ Falagas et al. have found SJR as a potential alternative to JIF, mainly due to its open-access nature, larger source database, and assessment of the quality of citations.²² Chen et al. found in their study on ophthalmological journals that journals having advance online publication had statistically higher JIF than those without that facility.²³ We did find a positive correlation between all determinants of publication speed (SA: r = 0.238, AP: r = 0.074, TT: r = 0.288, p < 0.001) and the SJR. Poltronieri and co-workers did not find any relationship between expensive APC and higher JIF among oncology journals.²⁴

4.6. Corresponding author’s details

Most journals have a broad representation from nations except “Journal of Spine Surgery and Related Research,” which is restricted to Japanese authors (authors needed to be members of their association for free submission, else a high APC). As the journal gets older with time, it expands its readership base and attracts authors. Similar findings were noted by Park et al. who saw more international authors in their ten-year audit of “The Spine Journal".⁶ We found 57.4% of authorship by orthopedic surgeons and 14.4% by neurosurgeons. Park et al. noted a substantial increase of contribution from the neurosurgeons compared to orthopedician and collaborative work between them in the ten-year audit of their single journal.⁶ The authors also noted that collaborative studies did not increase the level of evidence, nor did the author’s specialization influence the citation or higher level of evidence.⁶ Assad et al. found that in their analysis on plastic surgery journals, half of the publications came from predominantly three countries United States (US) (35%), followed by China (9%) and Korea, almost equally from a single institution and multicentre.³

4.7. Strengths and limitation

This study’s strengths include an analysis of a large sample size of articles from 14 different journals. It is also the first of its kind study in this specialty. However, there were some notable limitations. Some journals in NCBI database, even having higher JIF had to be excluded as informatics was not available. Journals like “Indian Spine Journal” and “Egyptian Spine Journal “and few other journals are yet to be listed in NCBI data base. The most accurate JIF should be retrieved from clarivate analytics citation report website, but we had to take SJR as many journals were not having a score.²³ Hence, we admit that there will be differences in the JIF displayed on the journal home page. We have purposefully skipped orthopedics and neurosurgical specialty journals, but these are potential areas of interest to spine surgeons and a shortcoming of our methodology. Sabrawal et al. have admitted in their study that as it would be impossible to include every journal available, a search strategy to capture a sample of mainstream orthopedic journals could be useful.¹³ We also did not classify the level of evidence but segregated patterns, as mentioned in most journals. Similarly, we did not divide the subheadings into basic and clinical studies. Nevertheless, this gives a prospect to future investigators for more elaborative studies.

5. Conclusion

Spine journals had comparable publication speed with journals in other medical disciplines. The publication speed has a positive correlation with the journal impact factor, but the author’s specialty and type of study did not influence publication speed. All journals have an open access option, but it comes at the cost of an article processing charge for some journals that can be big money and a burden for authors from economic constraint nations. The contribution is mainly from orthopedician, but the trend is changing towards collaborative research with neurosurgeons. Observational study dominates the pattern in spine research.

Authors’ contributions

MJ and CRM conceived the idea. MJ and RVR collected the data along with MB. CRM did the statistics part. MJ, RVR, JS and MB wrote up the manuscript where CRM provided the critical inputs. All authors have read and agree to content of the manuscript.

Ethical number

Not a human/animal study.

Declaration of competing interest

Nil.