Trends in Academic Productivity Among Radiologists During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Purpose: There is a scarcity of literature examining changes in radiologist research productivity during the COVID-19 pandemic. The current study aimed to investigate changes in academic productivity as measured by publication volume before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods: This single-center, retrospective cohort study included the publication data of 216 researchers consisting of associate professors, assistant professors, and professors of radiology. Wilcoxon's signed-rank test was used to identify changes in publication volume between the 1-year-long defined prepandemic period (publications between May 1, 2019, and April 30, 2020) and COVID-19 pandemic period (May 1, 2020, to April 30, 2021).

Results: There was a significantly increased mean annual volume of publications in the pandemic period (5.98, SD = 7.28) compared with the prepandemic period (4.98, SD = 5.53) (z = -2.819, P = .005). Subset analysis demonstrated a similar (17.4%) increase in publication volume for male researchers when comparing the mean annual prepandemic publications (5.10, SD = 5.79) compared with the pandemic period (5.99, SD = 7.60) (z = -2.369, P = .018). No statistically significant changes were found in similar analyses with the female subset.

Discussion: Significant increases in radiologist publication volume were found during the COVID-19 pandemic compared with the year before. Changes may reflect an overall increase in academic productivity in response to clinical and imaging volume ramp down.

Keywords: COVID-19; radiology; research productivity.