AbstractBackground Over the past few decades, The National Dental Practice-Based Research Network (network) has engaged in multiple collaborations with professional organizations. The authors evaluated the impact of a long-standing collaboration between the network and the American Association of Endodontists. Methods The authors assessed the impact of articles resulting from research done in the network using the National Institutes of Health (NIH) iCite metrics. Results Over the past 3 funding cycles, 7 studies pertaining to endodontics were conducted. These studies have so far resulted in 22 published articles, 1 in press article, and 4 articles under review. The overall mean relative citation ratio for 18 articles for which iCite metrics were available was 1.72, indicating that the articles were cited 72% more often than typical NIH-funded articles after adjusting for field of publication and time since publication. Two articles were cited over the 90th NIH percentile. The mean Approximate Potential to Translate score for the 18 articles was 56.4%. Conclusions These results from the network and the American Association of Endodontists showed that national-level collaborations between large organizations can result in impactful research that has immediate clinical relevance in everyday practice. Practical Implications The network facilitates research conducted in the real world of clinical practice and has positively affected the field of endodontics.
Allareddy et al. (Wed,) studied this question.