A bibliometric analysis of the traditional African dental practice of infant oral mutilation

Abstract

Background: Infant Oral Mutilation (IOM) is a deleterious form of germectomy that can cause irreversible damage to oral health and is capable of instigating systemic complications. It has often been reported as a part of African traditional medicine and continues to be reported in developed countries.

Methods: Publications on IOM were retrieved from PubMed, LENS.org, ScienceDirect, and Semantic Scholar. Rayyan was used to deduplicate the articles, and the Bibliometrix software generated data and visualizations on publication indicators, collaboration networks, conceptual networks, and citation analysis.

Results: 62 articles were included for the final data analysis after deduplication. These articles were published between 1969 and 2024 across 41 different journals. The United Kingdom and Uganda have published the most articles on IOM. The most reliable sources are the International Journal of Pediatric Dentistry, BMC Oral Health, and the British Dental Journal. The most active affiliations are the University of Nairobi, the School of Health and Medical Sciences, and the Hadassah School of Dental Medicine. Co-occurrence analysis, keyword mapping, and clustering revealed a strong connection between canine bud removal, infant, African traditional medicine, tooth germ, and tooth extraction.

Conclusion: This bibliometric analysis reveals a fluctuating publication trend for IOM and the need to address this topic more frequently in the scientific literature. It provides insight into top contributors in the form of authors, affiliations, countries, and journals who can be best relied on to understand and counter IOM.