Publication trends in the Journal of Shoulder and Elbow Surgery

As the field of orthopedic surgery advances, the quality of research articles and characteristics of authors of these publications continue to change. Various orthopedic journals report that there have been an increased number of authors per publication over the years. However, there have not been any reported changes in publication trends in upper extremity orthopedic journals over the past decade. Thus, the purpose of this study is to evaluate trends in characteristics of articles published in the Journal of Shoulder and Elbow Surgery (JSES) from 2012 to 2022, including type of study, level of evidence, country of publication, and author information.

Articles published in JSES between 2012 and 2022 were retrieved from the JSES Archives. Title, level of evidence, description of the study as delineated in the abstract, first author degree, number of authors, and country of publication were recorded for each published article.

A total of 3577 articles were published in JSES from 2012 to 2022. The average number of authors per article was 5.77 ± 2.6 with a significantly increasing trend over the study period. There was also a significant increase in non-medical degree or equivalent first authorship. The proportion of clinical studies with original data published per year significantly decreased while studies with nonoriginal data including systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and narrative reviews significantly increased over the study period.

There have been various publication trends in JSES over the last decade. These trends are important to acknowledge when evaluating the quality of recent publications.