Bibliometric analyses of global scholarly output in dentistry related to COVID-19

Abstract

Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the bibliometric profile of dental scientific production related to coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) in Scopus (2019-2020). Materials and Methods: This was a descriptive, observational, comparative, and retrospective study. All manuscripts on COVID-19 in dentistry were published between December 2019 and December 2020. The variables were measured objectively through Scopus (SciVal). For the extraction of the manuscripts, the following keywords were used: 'Covid-19' and 'Dentistry' with its multiple MeSH terms using the Boolean operators 'OR' and 'AND'. On June 14, 2021, 843 manuscripts corresponding to the period January 2019 to December 2020 were downloaded, normalized, and refined through metadata analysis. Results: The largest number of manuscripts was published in the International Journal of Current Research and Review, Oral Oncology, Oral Diseases, British Dental Journal, and Journal of Dental Education with 54, 50, 49, 48, and 44 manuscripts, respectively. These are the most productive indexed scientific journals on COVID-19. The most productive institutions were Saveetha University, Universidade de São Paulo, and King's College London, with 42, 33, and 27 manuscripts, respectively. In 2019, there were only two scientific publications on COVID-19. In 2020, the largest amount, 228 manuscripts, were published in Q1 journals, followed by 210 manuscripts in Q3 journals, and only 194 manuscripts were published in Q4 journals. Conclusions: Currently, there is a notable increase in global academic production in Scopus on the impact of COVID-19 in dentistry, whereas Brazil is the only South American country with three highly productive universities.