METHODOLOGY: The Clarivate Analytics' Web of Science 'All Databases', Elsevier's Scopus, Google Scholar and PubMed Central were searched to retrieve the 50 most-cited articles in the IEJ published from April 1967 to December 2018. The articles were analysed and information including number of citations, year of publication, contributing authors, institutions and countries, study design, study topic, impact factor and keywords was extracted.
RESULTS: The number of citations of the 50 selected papers varied from 575 to 130 (Web of Science), 656 to164 (Elsevier's Scopus), 1354 to 199 (Google Scholar) and 123 to 3 (PubMed). The majority of papers were published in the year 2001 (n = 7). Amongst 102 authors, the greatest contribution was made by four contributors that included Gulabivala K (n = 4), Ng YL (n = 4), Pitt Ford TR (n = 4) and Wesselink PR (n = 4). The majority of papers originated from the United Kingdom (n = 8) with most contributions from King's College London Dental Institute (UK) and Eastman Dental Hospital, London. Reviews were the most common study design (n = 19) followed by Clinical Research (n = 16) and Basic Research (n = 15). The majority of topics covered by the most-cited articles were Outcome Studies (n = 9), Intracanal medicaments (n = 8), Endodontic microbiology (n = 7) and Canal instrumentation (n = 7). Amongst 76 unique keywords, Endodontics (n = 7), Mineral Trioxide Aggregate (MTA) (n = 7) and Root Canal Treatment (n = 7) were the most frequently used.
CONCLUSION: This is the first study to identify and analyse the top 50 most-cited articles in a specific professional journal within Dentistry. The analysis has revealed information regarding the development of the IEJ over time as well as scientific progress in the field of Endodontology.
METHODS: This study was a narrative review using literature in the last 10 years identified by web-based search on PubMed and Scopus using keywords. A total of 33 articles that were closely related to the field and application in dentistry were included. The methodology, main results, and future research recommendations, if applicable, were extracted and reviewed.
RESULTS: The authors in this study had identified several areas such as orofacial pain and pain control research, dental anxiety, dental education, oral healthcare perceptions and access, living with dental diseases and dental treatment experience in which the phenomenological method was used to gain an in-depth understanding of the topic.
CONCLUSIONS: There are several advantages of using the phenomenological research method, such as the small sample size needed, the diverse and unique perspective that can be obtained and the ability to improve current understanding, especially from the first-person perspective.