Publication trends for articles related to the history of anesthesia: a 10-year analysis from six journals

Anesthesia historians believe they have difficulty in getting their work published in peer reviewed journals devoted to anesthesiology. To test the hypothesis of whether such publication bias exists, we conducted a review of all articles published in six journals.

We examined all articles published between January 2001 and December 2010. In order to enable comparison among journals, articles were categorized as major or minor. We also examined whether there were trends in publication over this period.

During this 10-year period, 30,600 articles were published in these journals (range, 2573 to 8563 articles). Of all articles published, only 382 (1.25%, range, 0.41% to 2.87%) were related to the history of anesthesia. The proportion of all articles related to history showed a significant difference with time (P<.001), primarily from differences in minor articles (P<.001). Analysis of the number of history-related articles published shows no obvious difference over the 10-year period (P=.25), but a significant difference among journals (P=.005). For major articles, there was a significant effect with time (P=.046) and journal (P<.001). Minor articles revealed no significant effect with time (P=.15), but significant differences among journals (P=.02).

Our analysis of 30,600 articles published in six mainstream journals devoted to anesthesiology found that considerable differences exist in the proportion and number of articles that were related to history of anesthesia.