The Spine Journal published a systematic review of orthopedic research examining the National Surgical Quality Improvement Program.
The researchers reviewed articles from Jan. 1, 2007 to July 31, 2015 examining spine and orthopedic research using NSQIP. The researchers found 1,525 articles in the initial search and 114 studies were eligible for the review. The researchers found:
1. The impact factor for journals publishing orthopedic NSQIP articles was 2.75 for orthopedic research and 2.52 for spine research.
2. The average number of citations per article was 6.08 for the orthopedic articles and 6.4 for the spine articles.
3. Only the impact factor and the year of publication had statistically significant association with the number of citations for orthopedic articles; among spine articles only the publication year had an influence on the number of citations.
4. Most of the publications with NSQIP had a relatively low impact.
5. The researchers concluded, "As our evaluation of study characteristics associated with high impact publications and increased citations were unable to uncover factors that are likely translatable, we suggest following research design guidelines that highlight best practices when using large datasets for orthopedic research."