Harmful oral habits in childhood: a global bibliometric analysis

Quantitative analysis of all articles on harmful oral habits through a bibliometric review.

The search was conducted on August 08, 2024 using the Web of Science database. All papers addressing the topic were included without language or date restrictions. Editorials, conferences, and meeting abstracts were excluded. From the selected articles, the following data were extracted: number of citations in Web of Science, year and journal of publication, impact factor (IF-2022), study design, type of deleterious habit and study objective, country, continent, institution, author, and keywords. Data analysis was performed using SSPS and VOSviewer software.

208 articles were included. Publications occurred between 1983 and 2024. The most cited article had 123 citations. The journals with the highest number of publications were the Journal of Clinical Pediatric Dentistry (n = 11) and the journal with the highest IF was the International Journal Oral Science (IF-14.9). There was observed a higher prevalence of observational study designs (n = 178), non-nutritive sucking habits (n = 151), and an association between harmful oral habits and malocclusion (n = 93). Most articles originated in the European continent (n = 77), the most prevalent country was Brazil (n = 61), with emphasis on the University of São Paulo (n = 8). The most frequent author was Paiva SM (n = 8).

This global analysis reveals greater interest in occlusal damage and non-nutritive sucking habits. The participation of observational studies is more prevalent.