Musculoskeletal Injury in American Football: A Bibliometric Analysis of the Most Cited Articles.

Background: Textbook knowledge and clinical dogma are often insufficient for effective evidence-based decision making when treating musculoskeletal injuries in American football players, given the variability in presentation and outcomes across different sports and different levels of competition. Key evidence can be drawn directly from high-quality published articles to make the appropriate decisions and recommendations for each athlete's unique situation.
Purpose: To identify and analyze the 50 most cited articles related to football-related musculoskeletal injury to provide an efficient tool in the arsenal of trainees, researchers, and evidence-based practitioners alike.
Study Design: Cross-sectional study.
Methods: The ISI Web of Science and SCOPUS databases were queried for articles pertaining to musculoskeletal injury in American football. For each of the top 50 most cited articles, bibliometric elements were evaluated: citation count and density, decade of publication, journal, country, multiple publications by the same first author or senior author, article content (topic, injury area), and level of evidence (LOE).
Results: The mean ± SD number of citations was 102.76 ± 37.11; the most cited article, with 227 citations, was "Syndesmotic Ankle Sprains" published in 1991 by Boytim et al. Several authors served as a first or senior author on >1 publication, including J.S. Torg (n = 6), J.P. Bradley (n = 4), and J.W. Powell (n = 4). The American Journal of Sports Medicine published the majority of the 50 most cited articles (n = 31). A total of 29 articles discussed lower extremity injuries, while only 4 discussed upper extremity injuries. The majority of the articles (n = 28) had an LOE of 4, with only 1 article having an LOE of 1. The articles with an LOE of 3 had the highest mean citation number (133.67 ± 55.23; F = 4.02; P = .05).
Conclusion: The results of this study highlight the need for more prospective research surrounding the management of football-related injury. The low overall number of articles on upper extremity injury (n = 4) also highlights an area for further research.
Competing Interests: One or more of the authors has declared the following potential conflict of interest or source of funding: H.W.S. has received education payments from Medwest and Smith & Nephew. C.A.P. has received education payments from Arthrex. AOSSM checks author disclosures against the Open Payments Database (OPD). AOSSM has not conducted an independent investigation on the OPD and disclaims any liability or responsibility relating thereto. Ethical approval was not sought for the present study.
(© The Author(s) 2023.)