The following is a summary of “The evolving landscape of publishing in the field of pain: An automated bibliometric analysis from 1975 to 2020,” published in the November 2023 issue of Pain by Nielsen et al.

Researchers started a retrospective study to analyze 45 years of pain research publications (1975-2020) and characterize two key journals in the field using automated methods.

They conducted database searches in Scopus, extracting all journals containing ‘pain’ in their title. For two designated journals, they manually or automatically categorized papers into preclinical, human, and translational studies. (Scopus is a multidisciplinary abstract and citation database.)

The results revealed an analysis of 64 pain journals in Scopus, encompassing both active and ceased ones. This identified 62,565 papers, with an annual publication rate of around 4000. Eur. J. Pain and PAIN® contributed 2,759 and 9,156 papers, respectively. Currently, there are 24 active pain journals. Authors per paper increased from 2 to 7, indicating a shift from mono-disciplinary to multidisciplinary studies.

Publication profiles for preclinical, human (experimental/clinical), and translational papers in Eur. J. Pain and PAIN® showed similar patterns (14%, 75%, and 10% versus 26%, 63%, and 10%). Papers evolved from mono-disciplinary studies (e.g., behavioral) to multi-disciplinary (e.g., combined behavioral and cell studies). After optimization, the search model matched manual screening by 100%, 98%, and 96% for preclinical, clinical, and healthy volunteer categories.

They concluded pain research exploded in 45 years, transforming from single-discipline to multi-disciplinary.

Source: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ejp.2213