Multiple authorship and article type in journals of urology across the atlantic: Trends over the past six decades

Objective: The aim of this research was to study the trends in authorship and type of article in European and North American journals of urology over the past 6 decades. Materials and Methods: Using a self-developed Visual Basic program, the number of authors per article and the type of article in four European journals (BJU International, Current Opinion in Urology, European Urology and Urologia Internationalis) and four North American journals (Journal of Urology, Urologic Clinics of North America, Urology and World Journal of Urology) were extracted from the PubMed website from January 1946 to October 2010, and the number of authors per article in each year was calculated in all the journals. Results: The average number of authors per article has increased and the percentage of single-author articles has decreased in both European and American journals. An increase in the number of authors per article was observed mainly in original articles and case reports. Since the early 1980s, there has also been a decreasing percentage of published case reports and a general increase in the percentage of letters to the editor and editorials. Conclusions: The multiple-authorship trends observed in both European and North American urology journals were similar and appeared to be mainly due to changes in original articles and case reports.