Trends in neonatology and pediatrics publications over the past 12 years

Objective: To test the hypothesis that the number of publications in Neonatology and Pediatrics increases over time, and to verify whether the categories of publications all follow the same pattern over time.

Design and setting: We evaluated all Medline articles during 1994–2005. Search was limited to humans, English and to ‘newborn’ or ‘all-child’. We used regression analysis to determine the effect of year-of-publication upon the number-of-publications of each type.

Results: Medline reported 36,141 publications in Neonatology and 169,823 in Pediatrics during the evaluation period. There was a significant linear increase in the number of publications in Neonatology and Pediatrics. There was a steady increase over time in Neonatology and in Pediatrics in meta-analyses, reviews and editorials. There was a steady decrease over time in letters in Neonatology, but no significant change in letters in Pediatrics. While there was no significant change in clinical trials (CTs), randomized control trials (RCTs) in Neonatology, there was a significant increase in CTs and RCTs in Pediatrics.

Conclusions: The field of neonatology has not had a significant yearly increase of original studies, but has seen an increase of reviews, meta-analyses and editorials. This contrasts with Pediatrics, which shows a similar increase in reviews, meta-analyses and editorials, but also an increase in the number of CTs and RCTs and guidelines.