African neurosurgery research: a scientometric analysis of the top 115 most cited articles

Document Type

Article

Department

General Surgery (East Africa)

Abstract

Background The use of quantitative and qualitative scientometrics provides deductive and inductive insights into the landscape of research in a specic area. In this manuscript, the authors identied the major contributors of African neurosurgery and emerging terms.

Methods Articles on African neurosurgery were searched on Web of Science and 8 other repositories without language or date restrictions. The H-index, co-author, author country, time trend, and keyword analyses were done using Bibexcel and VOSviewer.

Results 115 articles on African neurosurgery were published in 36 journals by 90 rst authors. The journals with the most articles were World Neurosurgery (46, 40.0%), Journal of Neurosurgery Pediatrics (8, 7.0%), and Neurosurgery (7, 6.1%). There was a rapid increase in the number of articles from 2010 and the median number of citations was 8 (IQR: 4-16). Qureshi MM had the highest H-index score (6) while Warf BC (5, 4.3%), Adeleye AO (4, 3.5%), and El Khamlichi (4, 3.5%) contributed the most to the 115 articles. The articles by Lanzino G (1999), Warf BC (2011), and Warf BC (2005) were the most influential. The U.S.A. had the largest node and South Africa, Kenya and Uganda were the most impactful African countries. Pediatric neurosurgery dominated the keywords and global neurosurgery was an emerging term.

Conclusion The most cited articles on African neurosurgery are published in prestigious specialty journals and neurosurgeons from Southern and East Africa are the most impactful local researchers. Future research should analyze the differences between African regions.

Publication (Name of Journal)

Research Square

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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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