Global Research Output on Sleep Research in Athletes from 1966 to 2019: A Bibliometric Analysis

This study examined sleep research in athletes published between 1966 and 2019, through a bibliometric analysis of research output in the Scopus database. Following a robust assessment of titles, the bibliometric indicators of productivity for studies included in the final analysis were: Distribution of publications and citations (excluding self-citations), top ten active journals, countries, institutions and authors, single- and multi-country collaboration, and 25 top-cited papers. Out of the 1015 papers, 313 were included in the final analysis. The majority of the papers were research articles (n = 259; 82.8%) and published in English (n = 295; 94.3%). From 2011, there was a dramatic increase in papers published (n = 257; 82.1%) and citations (n = 3538; 91.0%). The number of collaborations increased after 2001, with papers published through international (n = 81; 25.9%) and national (n = 192; 61.3%) collaboration. Australia was the most prolific country in terms of number of publications (n = 97; 31.0%), and citations (n = 1529; 15.8%). In conclusion, after the beginning of the twenty-first century, the scientific production on sleep research in athletes has seen significant growth in publication and citation output. Future research should focus on interventions to improve sleep in athletes.