The wave of “opinion articles” in the coverage of COVID-19 in surgical literature

Abstract

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic is having a deep impact on our surgical practice and scientific publishing output. Methods: The 100 best-ranked “surgery journals” were selected. The contents of the March, April, May, and June 2020 issues and ahead-of-print articles were screened. The retrieved articles on COVID-19 were separated into two categories: “opinion articles” and “scientific articles,” i.e., randomized trials and original articles with structured methods and results. The number of COVID articles published in the TOP-10 journals was compared with that of COVID articles published elsewhere. Results: There were 59 COVID original articles (8%). The great majority of articles were opinion articles (83.4%). Almost 40% of COVID articles were published in the TOP-10 journals. Conclusion: Original COVID articles (the core of our knowledge) are scant. Faced with a novel disease, neither the authors nor the editors should be criticized regarding this situation. The future step should be to publish high-quality papers in the setting of a major health crisis.