The most cited publications on snowboarding-related head injuries, concussions, and injury distribution.

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to identify the 50 most-cited publications relating to snowboarding and conduct a bibliometric analysis of the identified studies.

Methods: Clarivate Analytics Web of Science database was queried to identify all publication titles, abstracts, and keywords related to snowboarding. The resulting articles were sorted by total number of citations. Titles and abstracts were included based on their relevance to snowboarding. Once the 50 most cited articles were identified, each article was further analyzed to obtain author name, publication year, country of origin, journal name, article type, research topic, competition level, total number of citations, and the level of evidence. Citation density (total number of citations/years since publication) was calculated and recorded for each of the most-cited studies.

Results: The 50 most-cited articles were cited 4,123 times with an average of 82.5 citations per article. The most cited article was cited 212 times. The majority of articles came from 2 different countries, with the United States and Canada contributing 18 and 10 articles, respectively. The American Journal of Sports Medicine published the most articles (n = 11). The most studied topic was injury distribution (n = 25) followed by head injuries (n = 8). Recreational snowboarding was the most studied level of competition (n = 43).

Conclusions: The 50 most-cited articles related to snowboarding are predominantly cohort and review studies from the United States and Canada, focusing on recreational athletes. These articles primarily detail the total anatomic distribution of snowboard-related injuries, particularly head injuries and concussions.