Review Articles During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Potential Use to Continue Productivity

Some librarians during the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions heard direct and anecdotal evidence of researchers wanting to do evidence synthesis, such as systematic or scoping reviews, to either supplement or temporarily replace their now unavailable or restricted research agenda. Using Scopus data from 2013-2022, the quantity and percentage increase from the previous year for both review articles and all article types were examined for all institutions and for The Ohio State University. The results show that there was a much larger increase in review article output around the time of the COVID-19 pandemic compared to previous years, and compared to all journal articles. These increases indicate the potential use of review articles as a supplement or substitution for normal research agendas that faced restrictions. Subject areas were examined to identify which saw the highest percentage increases of review articles. Finally, journal titles that were heavy players in publishing these review articles were also identified.