Systematic reviews on reports of hip fractures in Web of Science: a bibliometric analysis of publication activity

Background The objective of this study was to analyze the trend in the publication of systematic reviews on hip fractures through a bibliometric approach. Methods Literature including systematic reviews or meta-analyses on hip fractures was searched from the ISI Web of Science citation database. The search results were analyzed in terms of geographical authorship and frequency of citation by country, institution, author, and periodical distribution. Results A total of 654 published systematic reviews from 1995 to 2013 in 48 countries or regions were retrieved. The United States (171) was the predominant country in terms of the number of total publications, followed by the United Kingdom (149), Canada (120), Australia (76), and China (54). The number of systematic reviews significantly increased during the last 6 years, especially in China. The production ranking changed in 2012, at which time the United States and China were the leaders in the yearly production of systematic reviews on hip fractures. The amount of literature (27 publications) from China contributed almost one-quarter of the total literature (109 publications) in 2012. However, the average number of citations of each article from China was still low (6.70), while the highest number of citations of each article was from Sweden (193.36). The references were published in 239 different journals, with 15 journals contributing to 41.3% of the systematic reviews on hip fractures. The two journals that contributed the most were Osteoporosis International (10.6%) and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (7.6%). The predominant institution in terms of the number of publications was McMaster University (36) in Canada. Conclusions The best evidence in the field of hip fractures has attracted increasing attention. Systematic reviews on hip fractures from China have been increasingly more frequent during the past 6 years, particularly in 2012.