Top 100 Cited Articles on Back Pain Research: A Citation Analysis.

STUDY DESIGN: A bibliometric review of the literature.

OBJECTIVE: Back pain is a global burden that leads people to seek medical service and results in work disability. Numerous studies are published annually to give new insights into back pain. However, characteristics of the high-impact articles on back pain have not been explored. The current study aimed to identify the 100 most cited articles on back pain and determine their characteristics.

SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA: Back pain is a globally leading cause of work disability. Numerous studies have been published annually to give new insight to back pain. However, comprehensive analysis to identify the most influential articles is not available until now.

METHODS: The Web of Science core database was searched using the subject terms "back NEAR pain," "dorsalgia," "backache," "lumbar NEAR pain," "lumbago," "back NEAR disorder*," "discitis." The searching results were listed by citation times and the top 100 cited articles on back pain were identified. Important information such as author, journal, publishing year, country, institution, and study type were elicited.

RESULTS: A total of 44,460 articles on back pain were displayed. Citation times of the enrolled 100 articles ranged from 249 to 1638 with a mean value of 418. The most productive periods were 1991 to 1995 and 1996 to 2000. The journal Spine holds the largest number of 45 articles, followed by Pain with seven articles. A total of 11 countries contribute to the 100 articles and the United States topped the list. None of the high-impact articles were produced in Asian and African.

CONCLUSION: The current citation analysis demonstrated the essential advances in the history of back pain research and determined the influential authors, institutions, countries, and journals that had outstanding contributions to the studies of back pain.

LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: 3.