Why do we encounter studies with older versions of the Oswestry Disability Index? Awareness of researchers about the version updates and the lifespan of older versions

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) is a common outcome-measure used for assessment of spinal disorders with three officially updated versions. However, there are recently published articles that still use ODI-1.0. This suggests the existence of a block on information flow between developers and end-users. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the articles with missing citation to the latest ODI version, to calculate the life span of previous ODI version and to investigate the existence of a block on information flow. METHODS: PMC-PubMed citation dataset is analyzed by CNA and text processing methods. RESULTS: The most important finding of this study is that there is no block on information flow between developers and users in terms of visibility in citations and full text access restrictions. Three different sub-networks are identified between ODI-1.0 and ODI-2.0 articles. 14% (165) of articles have citation to ODI-1.0 and ODI-2.0 version-articles. The time limit that is required for the new ODI version to become dominant in the literature is between 4 and 9 years. CONCLUSION: There is a missing citation problem in the ODI literature which is not a result of a block on information flow between developers and end-users.