Top-cited articles in emergency medicine.
OBJECTIVE
Our purpose was to identify and examine the characteristics of the most frequently cited articles in the field of emergency medicine (EM).


METHODS
Top-cited EM articles in 9 EM journals were identified by searching the computerized database of the Science Citation Index Expanded and the Web of Science (1972 to present). Median citation numbers, authors' nationalities, publication year, and fields of study were described and discussed. Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis tests were used to compare groups.


RESULTS
All top-cited articles were published during 1972 and 2002. We identified 100 top-cited articles published in 6 EM journals, led by Annals of Emergency Medicine (66) and American Journal of Emergency Medicine (22). Toxicology, traumatology, resuscitation medicine, and cardiovascular medicine were the primary focus of study. The median citation number for these top-cited articles was 102 (range, 71-335).


CONCLUSIONS
Our analysis gives an encyclopedic review of citation frequency of top-cited articles published in EM journals, which may provide information for those who want to find the history, evolution, and areas of high-impact research activities of EM.
Tsai
Yi-Lun
YL
Department of Emergency Medicine, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taipei 100, Taiwan.
Lee
Chien-Chang
CC
Chen
Shyr-Chyr
SC
Yen
Zui-Shen
ZS
D015706:Bibliometrics; D004635:Emergency Medicine; D010506:Periodicals as Topic; D011643:Publishing; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric