Predicting the number of article citations in the field of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) with the 100 top-cited articles since 2014: a bibliometric analysis

BACKGROUND: Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a common neurodevelopmental disorder in children or early adolescents with an estimated worldwide prevalence of 7.2%. Numerous articles related to ADHD have been published in the literature. However, which articles had ultimate influence is still unknown, and what factors affect the number of article citations remains unclear as well. This bibliometric analysis (1) visualizes the prominent entities with 1 picture using the top 100 most-cited articles, and (2) investigates whether medical subject headings (i.e., MeSH terms) can be used in predicting article citations. METHODS: By searching the PubMed Central(®) (PMC) database, the top 100 most-cited abstracts relevant to ADHD since 2014 were downloaded. Citation rank analysis was performed to compare the dominant roles of article types and topic categories using the pyramid plot. Social network analysis (SNA) was performed to highlight prominent entities for providing a quick look at the study result. The authors examined the MeSH prediction effect on article citations using its correlation coefficients (CC). RESULTS: The most frequent article types and topic categories were research support by institutes (56%) and epidemiology (28%). The most productive countries were the United States (42%), followed by the United Kingdom (13%), Germany (9%), and the Netherlands (9%). Most articles were published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (15%) and JAMA Psychiatry (9%). MeSH terms were evident in prediction power on the number of article citations (correlation coefficient = 0.39; t = 4.1; n = 94; 6 articles were excluded because they do not have MeSH terms). CONCLUSIONS: The breakthrough was made by developing 1 dashboard to display 100 top-cited articles on ADHD. MeSH terms can be used in predicting article citations on ADHD. These visualizations of the top 100 most-cited articles could be applied to future academic pursuits and other academic disciplines.