[Expected versus real impact factors of publications from Spanish departments of anesthesiology (1991-1996)]

Abstract

Objective: To identify publications by Spanish anesthesiologists in journals indexed by Journal Citation Report from 1991 through 1996; to count the number of citations received and compare the results with the impact factor (IF) of the journals in which they were published.

Material and methods: Articles for which the first author was a member of a Spanish anesthesiology department were searched for in MEDLINE, Science Citation Index and EMBASE. Only publications for which the IF was known were included for analysis. We then counted the number of citations each article received over the two years following publication, recording the source journal in which the citation appeared and country of origin of each citing author. We then calculated the real IF (RIF) of each article, the RIF of all the Spanish articles, and the mean RIF. Also calculated for each article was the expected IF (EIF), based on the IF of the source journal, the overall EIF and the mean EIF.

Results: One hundred seventy-two articles were published; 49 of them were letters to the editors. Specialist anesthesiology journals published 72.7%. A total of 186 citations were received. American authors cited the articles more often than did other Spanish authors. Thirty-seven citations (19.9%) were self-citations. Ninety-two articles (53.5%) were never cited. With letters to the editor excluded, the RIF was 85.48 and the global EIF was 213.28; the mean EIF was 1.734 and the RIF was 0.695. Therefore, the rate of citation of the Spanish authors in the period studied was only 40% of the citation rate of the entire population of authors from all countries. The authors of the published articles worked mainly in hospitals in Barcelona, Madrid, La Coruña, Valencia, Cantabria and Murcia. Hospital Germans Trias i Pujol (Badalona, Barcelona) had the largest number of publications and the highest EIF (39.41). Hospital del Mar (Barcelona) had the highest mean RIF and the highest global RIF.A gradual increase in the annual productivity of Spanish scientists can be discerned in a progressive increase in the number of publications as well as their EIF and RIF.

Conclusions: Research by Spanish anesthesiologists is concentrated in only a few hospitals. Although the number of publications is increasing, their international repercussion has still not reached the desired level.