Evidence-Based Medicine in Plastic Surgery: Are We There Yet?

Area of Science:

• Plastic Surgery
• Evidence-Based Medicine
• Bibliometrics

Background:

• Evidence-based medicine (EBM) is increasingly integral to plastic surgery practice.
• A growing body of literature utilizes EBM principles for assessment.

Purpose of the Study:

• To determine if articles with a high level of evidence receive more citations than those with a low level of evidence.
• To analyze citation impact based on evidence hierarchy in plastic surgery literature.

Main Methods:

• A systematic search of 4 major plastic surgery journals for original articles published in 2011.
• Classification of articles into high (Group 1) and low (Group 2) levels of evidence.
• Citation analysis using Scopus for the subsequent two years, with statistical comparison of citation counts.

Main Results:

• Articles with a high level of evidence were significantly more cited.
• 48.6% of high-evidence articles received over 10 citations within two years, compared to 18.4% of low-evidence articles.
• The mean citation count was 12.6 for high-evidence articles versus 6.56 for low-evidence articles (P < 0.0001).

Conclusions:

• Higher-level evidence articles in plastic surgery journals are cited more frequently.
• This suggests greater influence and recognition for robustly designed studies in the field.