Using Bradford's law of scattering to identify the core journals of pediatric surgery

Background: Bradford's law of scattering defines an exponentially diminishing return when extending a search for references in journals and can be used to identify the "core" journals in a field. The purpose of this study was to identify the core journals of pediatric surgery.

Methods: With Institutional Review Board approval, we developed bibliometric profiles for the top academically productive pediatric surgeons in the United States. These profiles included the total number of publications, journals in which those authors published their manuscripts, and identification of all articles cited by those surgeons, along with the journals those references were drawn from. Bradford's law of scattering was applied to identify the core journals of pediatric surgery.

Results: We identified n = 69 pediatric surgeons (10 ± 0.2 5-year h-index). These authors published 10,031 articles (145 ± 90 per surgeon), which were cited 250841 times (3635 ± 413 per surgeon). Pediatric surgeons' articles contained 199507 references (2891 ± 176 per surgeon). We analyzed 58,310 references (top 20 journals) cited by pediatric surgeons. Bradford's Law identified a single core journal for p = 3-10 zones, with P = 3, providing the best correlation between predicted and actual values (Rˆ2 = 0.9996). The core journal for pediatric surgery is Journal of Pediatric Surgery.

Conclusions: We used Bradford's Law to identify the core journals of pediatric surgery. These core journals include the two leading pediatric surgery-specific journals and the highest impact factor journals in surgery (Annals of Surgery) and medicine (NEJM). These findings can help busy pediatric surgeons focus their reading to stay updated in a rapidly evolving field.