An Exploratory Study of Published Case Reports Using a Systematic Typology

Case reports are a popular publication type, especially for medical learners. They also are an excellent educational vehicle that can spark a long-term interest in scholarship for medical learners. To maximize publication potential, authors need a framework when writing a case report.

We did a manifest content analysis on case reports published in 12 peer-reviewed medical journals between 2010 and 2019. We classified the case reports as detection, extension, diffusion, or fascination. The objective of our study was to determine whether case reports can successfully be classified by their primary contribution to the medial literature as detection, extension, diffusion, or fascination case reports.

Using a predefined search strategy, we identified 1,005 manuscripts identified as case reports published from 2010 to 2019 in 12 journals from a variety of medical specialties. Only 673 of the 1,005 (67.0%) met our criteria for a case report. Of these, 59.1% most closely fit the category of diffusion case reports. Fascination case reports were the least common (1.2%). The format of published case reports varied widely among journals.

Case reports can be categorized according to their main contribution to the medical literature. Nearly 60% of all published case reports in this study were not published for the purpose of introducing a novel clinical entity. Instead, they were used as a vehicle to educate clinicians about previously described phenomena. Authors seeking to publish case reports should understand how the framing of their report is likely to influence their chances of being published.