Abstracts

Rationale: Published research on seizures and epilepsy is common among neurology journals. The prevalence and characteristics of seizure and epilepsy research published in non-neurology journals are unknown. Examining this published research allows for insight into the relevance of seizures and epilepsy in other specialties and may increase opportunity for cross-specialty collaboration.  Methods: We reviewed the top five highly cited clinical journals within eleven specialties in the InCites Journal Citation Reports database (2016): cardiac and cardiovascular systems; clinical neurology; critical care medicine; emergency medicine; general and internal medicine; neuroimaging; neurosurgery; obstetrics and gynecology; oncology; pediatrics; and psychiatry. For each specialty, we collected 2013-2017 PubMed data on publications with MeSH Major Topic of “seizures,” “epilepsy,” or “status epilepticus.” Medical subject headings (MeSH) in PubMed are standardized by subject analysts. MeSH Major Topic identifies articles in which a specified topic is the major focus of the article. We also retrieved country and specialty affiliations of first and last authors. We analyzed whether author medical specialty affiliation was 1) concordant with journal medical specialty, 2) neurology-related, or 3) other.  Results: Table 1 illustrates the total number of 2013-2017 journal articles within each specialty and the percentage of articles in which “seizures,” “epilepsy,” or “status epilepticus” are a major focus. Within clinical neurology journals, seizure-related articles comprised about 5% of all articles. For some medical specialties such as general and internal medicine, neuroimaging, and pediatrics, seizure-related articles are more likely to be authored by someone with a neurology-related affiliation. For other specialties such as critical care medicine, emergency medicine, neurosurgery, and obstetrics and gynecology, seizure-related articles are more likely to be authored by someone within the field.  Conclusions: Our study characterizes seizure and epilepsy research published in non-neurology journals. We found that there is a paucity of such published research in non-neurology journals, whether authored by neurologists or other specialists. This is not ideal since non-neurologists are often first-line providers for recognizing, diagnosing, or managing seizures, prior to assessment by a neurologist. Cross-specialty collaboration should be strongly encouraged in clinical research.   Funding: None