Trainee contribution is not associated with citation frequency: a retrospective study

Publication date: Available online 28 January 2019

Source: Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery

Author(s): Hossein E. Jazayeri, Brian R. Carr, Kevin C. Lee, Sung-Kiang Chuang, Anh D. Le, Rabie M. Shanti

Abstract

Purpose

Publication citation frequency is a measure of scientific influence. The purpose of this study was to measure the association between trainee involvement in publications and citation frequency.

Materials and Methods

A retrospective cohort study was conducted of the Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery (JOMS) from January 2010 to December 2010. For each included publication, the study topic and design were recorded. The primary predictor variable was trainee involvement (Y/N). For the purpose of our study, the term 'trainee' encompassed dental students, graduate (non-dental) students, oral and maxillofacial surgery (OMS) residents, and non-OMS residents, as indicated by author affiliations listed on each manuscript. The outcome variable was the number of citations accumulated between 2010 and 2017. Descriptive statistics were computed. Analyses of variance (ANOVA) were performed to compare citation distribution among study types and designs. Student t-tests and chi-squared tests were performed.

Results

The sample consisted of 111 publications, of which 85 (76.6%) had at least one trainee author. Among all publications, the mean number of citations was significantly different across study designs (p=0.03) with case reports earning the lowest number of citations on average (mean: 14.9 citations). Trainee publications had significantly different distributions of study topics (p=0.02) and designs (p<0.01). Among publications with a trainee author, the most common topic was pathology (37%) and the most common study design was case report (45%). Despite the higher proportion of case reports, the mean number of citations between trainee (mean: 30.4 citations) and non-trainee (mean: 30.5 citations) publications was not significantly different (p= 0.99).

Conclusions

Including trainees does not alter the citation frequency of the manuscripts published in JOMS. This finding is encouraging to both academic surgeons and their trainees, as a higher volume of students and residents can be engaged in research while preserving the influence of the published works.

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