Bibliometric Analysis of the Scientific Production of the Pesquisa Brasileira em Odontopediatria e Clinica Integrada : 2007-2017

Objective: To analyze the bibliometric profile of articles published in the Pesquisa Brasileira em Odontopediatria e Clinica Integrada (PBOCI). Material and Methods: In this documental study, two trained examiners independently assessed the abstracts of all articles published between 2007 and 2017. Articles were categorized according to the study design, dental specialty and institutional affiliation of the main author. The full article was read whenever the abstract did not allow its classification. Descriptive statistics were used to calculate the absolute and relative frequencies. Results: In total, 670 articles were identified, with predominance of publications in the areas of Pediatric Dentistry (33.3%), Community Health (18.7%) and Restorative Dentistry (12.2%). The most used designs were cross-sectional (58.3%), especially in the areas of Pediatric Dentistry and Community Health; and laboratory studies (25.7%), mainly in the areas of Restorative Dentistry and Endodontics. The Brazilian universities that most published in the Journal were the Federal University of Paraíba (9.7%), followed by the State University of São Paulo (6.4%) and University of São Paulo (6%), characterizing predominance of the Southeastern and Northeastern regions. The publications of authors with international affiliation represented 9.1%. The distribution among nations reveals studies from countries such as India (34.5%), Nigeria (14.8%), Bosnia (11.5%) and Iran (8.2%). Conclusion: PBOCI has provided Brazilian and foreign researchers the opportunity to disseminate studies in all areas of Dentistry, but studies in the fields of Pediatric Dentistry and Community Health are predominant. The most frequent designs were cross-sectional and laboratorial, and in relation to foreign participation, there is predominance of research from countries such as India, Nigeria and Bosnia.


Introduction
The search for the best scientific evidence in clinical decision making in dentistry has been gaining attention in recent years. Scientific journals have increasingly sought greater visibility of their publications with an emphasis on the indexing process [1]. In this sense, Journals undergo merit evaluations, scoring aspects such as regularity of publications, quality of information, language of publication, composition of the editorial body and institution of origin of authors, among others.
According to the 2013-2016 quadrennial report of Graduate Programs of Brazil conducted by the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES) [2], the area of Dentistry has increased in a considerable and consistent way the intellectual production, emphasizing that all subareas had at least one Journal classified as "A". The graduate programs produced in this period 15,948 complete articles in Brazilian and foreign Journals. Brazilian Dentistry has therefore been prominent in intellectual production with a clearly differentiated growth curve, even among countries with long tradition of health research [2].
With the constant increase in the publication of scientific articles, the quality of this production should be evaluated. In this way, bibliometry has been proposed to quantify the processes of written communication, establishing a basis for the formation of science [3,4]. Bibliometry is a quantitative tool that allows reducing the subjectivity inherent of indexing and retrieval of information, producing knowledge in a specific subject area and identifying the most outstanding themes, innovations that have occurred over time, and gaps that represent opportunities for researchers and institutions [5][6][7]. Brazil has established a system for the evaluation of Graduate Programs in the country, known as Qualis, which is one of the fundamental instruments for the evaluation of intellectual production, adding the quantitative to the qualitative aspect [8]. The criteria for defining and distributing the scientific Journals in each stratum are established by respective areas of evaluation, which may result in different classifications for the same Journal in each of these areas [9]. In this aspect, the Journal was classified in the last four years (2013-2016) as Qualis B2 for Nursing, Education and Interdisciplinary areas and Qualis B3 for Dentistry, Community Health and Physical Education areas, and also ranks in 11 other areas of knowledge. Therefore, the aim of this study was to analyze the profile of articles published in the Pesquisa Brasileira em Odontopediatria e Clínica Integrada from 2007 to 2017 through a bibliometric analysis.

Study Design and Data Collection
This is a descriptive study using documental research. For data collection, the abstract of the published article was initially used. On occasions when this was not enough to extract data, the entire article was read. Articles were analyzed and classified according to the year of publication, dental specialty, study design, corresponding author's affiliation and foreign participation.
The categorization of articles was performed by two researchers independently (TSB and MCI). Training was carried out in periodic meetings for the revision of concepts and parameters aiming at standardization in the classification of articles. In case of disagreement, a third researcher (PFK) participated in the categorization until a consensus among examiners was established.
Prefaces, editorials, notes, comments and publications of abstracts at national scientific meetings were excluded as they were not subject of the investigation.
The study designs were categorized as: systematic review, randomized clinical trial, cohort, case-control, cross-sectional, case series, in vivo laboratory, in vitro laboratory and literature review [10,11]. Specialty was classified according to the 22 specialties regulated by the Brazilian Federal Council of Dentistry (CFO) [12]. Specialties Orthodontics and Functional Orthopedics of Maxillaries were gathered in the same area. The origin of authors was identified according to the institution of origin of the corresponding author of each article (Brazilian and foreign university), in order to obtain the total number of publications of each university.

Data Analysis
Data were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows Software, version 20 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA). Descriptive statistics were used to calculate the absolute and relative frequencies.

Results
The sample consisted of 670 articles published in the period from 2007 to 2017. Figure 1 shows the number of articles according to the year of publication. There is variation in the number of      Figure 3 shows the methodological designs of publications. Cross-sectional studies accounted for 58.3% of the total, followed by in vitro and in vivo laboratory studies (25.7%), comprising more than 80% of the designs observed in that period. Randomized controlled trials, case-control studies, cohort, systematic reviews and case series corresponded to 9.2% of all published articles.       [14,15]. Another important aspect is that the PBOCI is the Brazilian Journal with the largest annual publication of articles in the field of oral health in public health [16]. On the other hand, it is noteworthy that other specialties that effectively constitute "Integrated Clinic" do not constitute a relevant part of publications, such as Prosthodontics, Periodontics and Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery and Traumatology. This occurs, at least in part, because researchers in these areas are still unaware of the Journal's potential, including its increased visibility. This is a gap whose completion can contribute to the dissemination of Brazilian scientific production in the area and further leverage the impact of the Journal.
The evaluation of study designs evidenced a large number of publications with low potential to establish scientific evidence. Cross-sectional and laboratory studies accounted for 84% of publications. Although cross-sectional studies do not contribute to defining interventions at individual or collective level [17,18], it is important to estimate prevalence and identify factors associated with different health problems. However, it was the design used in approximately 90% of studies in the area of Dentistry in Community Health and 65.5% in the area of Pediatric Dentistry.
Laboratory studies, in turn, represent more than 80% of publications in the area of Restorative Dentistry and two-thirds in the area of Endodontics in the study period. This fact demonstrates that the research process that simulates biological conditions in laboratory is a characteristic of Brazilian researchers [18]. Although important for the establishment of hypotheses that precede research in humans, this design has no potential to consolidate clinical behaviors in addition to being sometimes repetitive [17,19]. However, if considered as preliminary steps involving future clinical outcomes, they are important for the evolution of the research and the search for the best scientific evidence [19].
The small number of studies with potential to contribute to the definition of clinical behaviors (randomized controlled trials and systematic reviews) may be related to the difficulty of their execution, since they require greater time and cost, requiring the researcher greater experience for their execution, as well as a research group prepared to develop them [20,21]. In addition, articles with such designs tend to be submitted and published in major international Journals. providing opportunities for knowledge production that reflects different realities in Brazil [22,23].
Regarding the nature of institutions, the study shows the superiority of public institutions in the percentage of publications. It is a fact that public institutions provide greater support to scientific research [24]. Other researchers also found greater proportion of publications from public institutions in studies with similar methodology [24][25][26]. It is also noteworthy that a significant number of publications are of international origin, demonstrating the interest of foreign researchers in publishing in PBOCI. The countries that most contributed were India (34.4%) and Nigeria