Academic impact of French Hip & Knee Surgery Society (SFHG): A bibliometric analysis.

Introduction: The French Hip & Knee Surgery Society (SFHG) brings together French-speaking hip and knee expert surgeons. There has been an exponential growth of orthopaedic surgical activity over the last decade and hip and knee surgery clinical research has had a similar growth. Despite this, the SFHG's contribution to the orthopaedic literature remains poorly known. To answer this question, we conducted a bibliometric study using data from the national SIGAPS database between 2013 and 2022 to determine: (1) the number of publications produced by SFHG members, (2) the proportion of articles produced by SFHG members in relation to French orthopaedic production, (3) impact markers for articles produced by SFHG member surgeons, (4) collaboration networks between SFHG member surgeons.

Hypothesis: The number of articles produced by SFHG member surgeons will represent a significant proportion of French scientific output in orthopaedics.

Material and method: The analysis was carried out by cross-referencing the SFHG membership list with the French database of the "Système d'interrogation, de gestion, d'analyse des publications scientifiques" (SIGAPS) and the InCites platform. Among the 189 SFHG members, we identified a list of 183 SIGAPS identifiers in the national database, corresponding to 127 distinct individuals with publications over the period 2013-2022. Several indicators were studied: number of publications; SIGAPS score for the different WoS categories; number and percentage of publications in the top1% and top10%.

Results: Of SFHG's 189 members, 127 have been identified by the SIGAPS database as "publishers". Over the last decade, 2306 articles have been published by SFHG members. The number of publications has risen steadily, from 203 publications in 2013 to 261 publications in 2022. All SIGAPS categories were represented. Most articles were published in rank D (n = 719; 31.2%) C (n = 552; 23.9%) and B (n = 549; 23.8%) journals. Authors were in first (n = 624) or last position (n = 730) in 58.7% of publications. Orthopaedics (1,639; 71.1%), Surgery (1,124; 48.7%) and Sports surgery (335; 14.5%) were the most frequently observed topics. Orthopaedics & Traumatology: Surgery & Research is the most popular journal for SFHG members' articles, with 655/2306 articles published over the last decade, representing a 32.2% market share. Of the 2160 publications indexed on the Web of Science, 1807 (83.7%) had a French corresponding author. 31 articles (1.4%) were in the Top 1% of most-cited articles worldwide, and 310 were in the Top 10% of most-cited articles worldwide (14.5%).

Discussion: SFHG is a major player in orthopaedic research in France. In 2022, it accounted for 19% of the annual volume of French scientific publications in the field of orthopaedics and traumatology.

Level of evidence: IV; Retrospective study without control group.