• Miguel Bertelli Ramos, Matheus Machado Rech, DagostiniCarolina MattéCMSchool of Medicine, University of Caxias do Sul, Caxias do Sul, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil., BritzJoão Pedro EinsfeldJPESchool of Medicine, University of Caxias do Sul, Caxias do Sul, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil., Manoel Jacobsen Teixeira, and Eberval Gadelha Figueiredo.
• School of Medicine, University of Caxias do Sul, Caxias do Sul, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.
• World Neurosurg. 2022 Sep 1; 165: e74e82e74-e82.

ObjectiveThe objective of this study was to assess the Author Impact Factor (AIF) as a useful metric and as a complement to the h-index among neurosurgical researchers.MethodsThe 5-year AIF and h-index were compared among 3 groups of researchers: 1) the 100 most prolific of all time within general neurosurgical journals ("Experienced"), 2) the 100 most prolific during the 2015-2019 period within general neurosurgical journals ("Trending Group"), and 3) the 100 postgraduation year 7 neurosurgical residents with the highest h-index ("Amateur").ResultsThe Amateur group had a lower median h-index than the Experienced (6 vs. 55; P < 0.001) and Trending (6 vs. 43; P < 0.001) groups. The highest h-index of the Amateur group (24) was lower than the first quartile of the Experienced (46.25) and Trending (26.00) groups. The Amateur group had a lower median 5-year AIF than the Experienced (2.15 vs. 3.17; P < 0.001) and Trending (2.15 vs. 2.85; P = 0.02) groups. Unlike the h-index, the gap between the 5-year AIF distribution of the Amateur group and other groups was not profound. Although there was a positive correlation between the metrics in the 3 groups, they did not proxy for each other. For instance, while the h-index of some experienced authors that have not published recently was high, their AIFs were zero. Also, some Amateur authors published very impactful articles and had a high 5-year AIF. However, since their number of publications is inevitably low, their h-index were low.ConclusionsThe AIF provides intuitive and complementary information to the h-index regarding the research output of neurosurgical authors.Copyright © 2022. Published by Elsevier Inc.

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