Head & Neck Posters
AB286. SOH26AB_0151. Single authorship trends in high-impact otolaryngology journals: a bibliometric analysis
Nyamateja Kaare4, Grant Thesing1, John Cyrus2, Aaron Tucker3, John Fenton4, Danial Coelho1
1School of Medicine, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA;
2Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Libraries, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA;
3Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine, Richmond, VA, USA;
4Academic Department of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, University Hospital Limerick, Faculty of Surgery, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland
Background: As the quality of evidence-based research continues to evolve, authorship trends would be expected to change in parallel. Single-authorship has never been used to characterize this phenomenon in academic otolaryngology. Our objective is to characterize trends in single-authorship in otolaryngology literature over the last three decades.
Methods: The Web of Science was queried for studies published in first-quartile impact factor otolaryngology journals between 1994 and 2024. Single-author publications were identified via manual coding. The studies were analysed by publication type, country of origin, open access status, and 5-year total citation accrual. Results were compared between studies published in each decade, including 1994–2003 (D1), 2004–2013 (D2), and 2014–2023 (D3).
Results: Out of 62,897 identified total publications in the study period, 4,322 (6.87%) were single-author studies. The rate of single authorship significantly decreased in each decade (D1: 12.5%, D2: 6.6%, D3: 4.7%, P<0.001). The USA had a majority of single-author articles in 1999 (23/35) and in 2019 (10/28). The USA and Australia tied in 2009 (each 7/41).
Conclusions: Single-author articles in high-impact otolaryngology journals steadily decreased over the last three decades. When looking at a representative year in each decade, citations per article increased across the study period in proportion to the increase in multi-author citations per article. These findings suggest the importance of single authorship in producing impactful papers in the field of otorhinolaryngology and raise concerns with shifting to multi-author publications.
Keywords: Authorship; medical; publication; single; trends
Acknowledgments
None.
Funding: None.
Conflicts of Interest: The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.
Ethical Statement: The authors are accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
Open Access Statement: This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which permits the non-commercial replication and distribution of the article with the strict proviso that no changes or edits are made and the original work is properly cited (including links to both the formal publication through the relevant DOI and the license). See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.
doi: 10.21037/map-26-ab286
Cite this abstract as: Kaare N, Thesing G, Cyrus J, Tucker A, Fenton J, Coelho D. AB286. SOH26AB_0151. Single authorship trends in high-impact otolaryngology journals: a bibliometric analysis. Mesentery Peritoneum 2026;10:AB286.
