Bibliometric indicators of production and usage of Archivos de Bronchoneumologia

We studied the bibliometric indexes referring to production and scientific output published in ARCHIVOS de BRONCONEUMOLOGIA. All issues published between 1993 and 1994 were studied with the exception of monógraphic or supplementary numbers. For each article we recorded article type, number of authors, authors' place of work, specialty, time until acceptance, time until publication, type of references, language of references, journal and year of references. For each year we calculated the productivity index and the cooperation index, or index of signers per work. We also determined the citation period for references, the Price index, and the insularity index. Productivity index was 1.97 in 1993 and 2.05 in 1994. The cooperation index for the two years reached 4.5 +/- 1.9 (1-10). Authors were widely distributed by provinces and by specialties, although "nuclei" of production could be identified. The citation half-life period was 5.67 years for references in 1993 and 5.94 years in 1994, and the Price index surpassed 40%. The insularity index was very low at 7.76%. In conclusion, the bibliometric indicators for production, readership and obsolescence for the two years analyzed indicate that ARCHIVOS de BRONCONEUMOLOGIA occupies an intermediate position in the ranking of Spanish medical journals.     

AIDS.

Introduces the topics covered in this Psychology in the Public Forum section of the journal. The authors of the articles that are part of this section believe AIDS is a problem that calls for psychology's involvement in designing research, in carrying out that research, in treating people with AIDS, in the development of public health programs, and in making active efforts toward prevention. The author of this article briefly discusses the topic and content of each of the articles included in this section. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Thomas McKeown and Archibald Cochrane: a journey through the diffusion of their ideas

In the 1970s Thomas McKeown and Archibald L Cochrane were two of the most influential voices in criticizing the dominance of medical thinking. A bibliometric study of the citations to McKeown's The Role of Medicine: Dream, Mirage or Nemesis and Cochrane's Effectiveness and Efficiency: Random Reflections on Health Services was performed from the publication of each book until 1988 to study how their ideas have been disseminated. During the study period 430 papers in the Science Citation Index or the Social Sciences Citation Index cited Cochrane's book, 133 cited McKeown's, and 166 cited both. The citations came mainly from original papers published in journals of internal medicine or public health and epidemiology (35%) and written by authors from the United States or the United Kingdom. Cochrane's book was cited most frequently in medical journals, suggesting a higher degree of penetration of his ideas among medical scientists. Although the dominance of original papers among the citations suggests that these books have been important in stimulating new knowledge, the main problems that McKeown and Cochrane identified--namely, the relatively small impact of clinical medicine on health outcomes and the poor use of scientific methods in clinical practice--are still with us.     

Anales de Medicina Interna: standardization, dissemination and bibliometric indicators. (II) Bibliometric analysis

National and international diffusion, composition of the collective of authors who publish in the journal, and cocitation were studies for the journal An. Med. Interna. Diffusion was analyzed by examining the presence of the journal in medical data bases and specialized libraries in Spain. The institutional affiliations and geographical location of authors were determined on the basis of the affiliations given in the article by-lines. The journal is included in the major medical data bases and in approximately 80% of the libraries studied. The predominant professional affiliation among authors was clinical (hospital); the geographical origin of the authors (expressed as a percentage of all authors) approximately paralleled the volume of scientific publications generated by each of Spain's 17 autonomous regions. The cocitation study showed that An. Med. Interna ranked somewhere in the middle of the group' of 38 Spanish medical journals considered representative of research being done in Spain.     

Efficacy of etodolac for the treatment of osteoarthritis of the hip joints in dogs

STUDY OBJECTIVE: To arrive at a consensus on the priorities for future research in emergency medical services for children. METHODS: A consensus group was convened using the Rand-UCLA Consensus Process. The group took part in a 3-phase process. Round 1 involved reviewing a compendium of relevant research articles and answering a mailed questionnaire. Panel members were asked to prioritize topics on the basis of the 1993 Institute of Medicine Report on Emergency Medical Services for Children. Participants were asked to rate each topic based on the significance of the research, and whether the topic would (1) improve general knowledge, (2) change behavior, (3) improve health, (4) decrease the cost of care, or (5) change public policy. A 4-point Likert scale was used. Participants were also asked if the research would require a multicenter study and if the research were feasible. Round 2 of the study involved a meeting of the panel, where the results of Round 1 were discussed and the topics were reprioritized. The topics were given a rank order and a final ranking was done in Round 3. RESULTS: The panel considered a list of 32 topics; these were combined and reworded to give them more precise meaning. Several new topics were also added. Fifteen topics were given a rank order and placed within the 7 broad categories of the Institute of Medicine report. Clinical aspects of emergency care, systems organization, configuration, and operation and injury prevention were given high priority rankings. The first 5 topics were very close in point-rank order. CONCLUSION: The panel was able to develop a list of important topics for future research in emergency medical services for children that can be used by foundations, governmental agencies, and others in setting a research agenda for such services.     

Bibliometric analysis of the original articles published in the Revista Espa?ola de Anesthesiología y Renimación in 10 years (1987-1996)

OBJECTIVE: To describe the original research articles published in Revista Espa?ola De Anestesiología y Reanimación (REAR) from 1987 through 1996, as well as to characterize the citations included in those articles. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The 299 articles published as original research in REAR over the past 10 years (1987 through 1996) were analyzed. The bibliographic aspects examined were coauthorship (authors/paper index), citations per article, isolation in function of language of publication of references, degree of obsolescence of articles based on year of references cited ("half-life"), self-citation and degree of dispersion of citations. RESULTS: The authors/paper index was 5.16 +/- 1.62. No statistically significant difference was found in number of authors over the 10-year study period. Mean number of references cited per article was 24.05 +/- 12.02. We found statistically significant differences for 1993 and the period 1987 to 1988, and 1994 and the year 1987 (p < 0.001). The "half-life" of articles was 6 when analyzing on a year-by-year basis; this index ranged from 5.5 to 7, with no significant annual differences. REAR articles accounted for 4.02% of all citations. English was the most frequent language of cited publications, with 6,240 references (86.8%), followed by Spanish with 621 (8.64%), French with 223 (3.1%) and German with 74 (1.03%). Of the 7,191 references analyzed, 6,447 (89.65%) were of scientific journals. Books are the second most commonly cited type of document, with 623 (8.66%) citations. Analyzing journals cited 25 or more times, we found that 74.19% of the articles (4,783/6,447) had been published in 5.3% of the journals (36/678). Seven journals of anesthesia, which represented 1.03% of all journals (7/678) appeared in 52.81% of references of this type (3,405/6,447). CONCLUSIONS: The number of authors of original research articles published in REAR in the last 10 years was high. Spanish authors in anesthesiology cite mainly literature in English; use up-to-date sources of information, mainly journals; and take a large proportion of information from a small number of journals, which are those of greatest international impact in our specialty.     

Changes in medical education in Spain

In Spain, the lack of homogeneous criteria among medical institutions has led to gaps between medical school, residency, and continuing medical education. The authors describe the background and early history of the Spanish medical education system, early reforms, and the start of modern postgraduate medical education. They discuss the current system, highlighting ongoing concerns about how physicians are trained, including the emphasis on lectures and traditional assessment methods; the focus of faculty on research activities rather than teaching; inadequate assessment of residents; and the lack of coordination among providers of continuing medical education. However, they also highlight ongoing reform efforts, most notably the development of a new medical curriculum that has just begun to be implemented. They conclude with a discussion of the future direction of medical education in Spain, in which the growing movement toward greater unity among European nations is likely to play a large role.     

Bibliometric index

The Institute of Scientific information has edited an index to evaluate the diffusion of scientific articles. It is based on the fact that the more an article is cited as a reference in other articles, the more it is considered to be important, and the higher the coefficient attributed to the journal in which it was originally published. The impact factor takes into account the average number of times which a journal is mentioned for recent articles published in a given year. This index is an attempt to quantify the notoriety of scientific journal for all scientific medical specialties.     

Psychologists in Schools of Public Health: Current Status, Future Prospects, and Implications for Other Health Settings.

The deans and departmental chairs of the 22 schools of public health were asked in 1981 to list all psychologists holding full-time faculty appointments and the names of courses with a substantial behavioral/psychological content. Responses were received from 98% of the departments. The psychologists were then sent a survey concerning their backgrounds, job responsibilities, and satisfaction/dissatisfaction with their positions. There was an 80% response rate. Psychologists accounted for 5.7% of the approximately 1,300 full-time faculty in schools of public health. Psychologists represented a larger percentage of the faculty in departments of behavioral science than in departments of epidemiology, biostatistics, environmental health, and so forth. Public health psychologists were active researchers and publishers, with average totals of 2.5 articles and 26.9 citations for a three-year period. The primary advantages of employment in a school of public health had to do with an appreciation of the public health perspective, an interdisciplinary orientation, and research opportunities. The primary dissatisfactions cited were financial insecurity, isolation from psychology, and lack of appreciation among public health colleagues of the contribution of psychology to public health. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Detecting undetected HIV-1 variants in African children using degenerate polymerase chain reaction and sequence analyses

CONTEXT: Scientific journals issue press releases to disseminate scientific news about articles they publish. OBJECTIVE: To assess whether press releases about journal articles were associated with publication of subsequent newspaper stories. DESIGN: Retrospective content analysis of newspaper stories, journal press releases, and journal tables of contents. From December 1, 1996, to February 28, 1997, press releases and tables of contents were collected from BMJ, Nature, Science, and The Lancet, along with newspaper stories on scientific research published in The New York Times (United States), Le Figaro and Le Monde (France), El País and La Vanguardia (Spain), La Repubblica (Italy), and the International Herald Tribune. MAIN OUTCOME MEASUREMENTS: Number of newspaper stories that contained reference to articles appearing in the 4 scientific journals, number of newspaper stories that referred to journal articles described in press releases, and the order in which journal articles were mentioned in press releases. RESULTS: Of the 1060 newspaper stories analyzed, 142 referred to journal articles; of these, 119 (84%) referred to articles mentioned in press releases and 23 (16%) referred to journal articles not mentioned in press releases (comparison of proportions, P=.03). Articles described first or second were referenced in more newspapers than articles described later in the press release (P=.01 by chi2 analysis). CONCLUSIONS: Journal articles described in press releases, in particular those described first or second in the press release, are associated with the subsequent publication of newspaper stories on the same topic.     

Scientific journals and their authors' financial interests: a pilot study

BACKGROUND: The credibility of modern science is grounded on the perception of the objectivity of its scientists, but that credibility can be undermined by financial conflicts of interest. The US Public Health Service and the National Science Foundation issued regulations effective October 1, 1995, regarding the disclosure of financial interests in the submission of grant proposals. Several scientific journals have also established pertinent policies for authors and editors. The objectives of this study were: (1) to select a set of published articles and observe the degree to which a sample of authors hold a financial interest in areas related to their research that are reportable under current standards, and (2) to examine the hypothesis that significant numbers of authors of articles in life science and biomedical journals have verifiable financial interests that might be important for journal editors and readers to know. This paper measures the frequency of selected financial interests held among lead authors of certain types of scientific publications and assesses disclosure practices of authors and journals. METHOD: These objectives were applied to a pilot study of Massachusetts academic scientists who were cited as first or last author in at least one article published in 1992 in 14 leading journals of cell or molecular biology and medicine. We created a database of every original article published in 1992 by 14 leading life science and biomedical journals, supplemented by data sets consisting of (1) Massachusetts biotechnology firms, including their officers and scientific advisory boards, and (2) scientists listed as inventors on patents or patent applications registered with the World Intellectual Property Organization. RESULTS: We examined 1,105 university authors (first and last cited) from Massachusetts institutions whose 789 articles, published in 1992, appeared in 14 scientific and medical journals. Authors are said to 'possess a financial interest' if they are listed as inventors in a patent or patent application closely related to their published work; serve on a scientific advisory board of a biotechnology company; or are officers, directors, or major shareholders (beneficial owner of 10% or more of stock issued) in a firm that has commercial interests related to their research. Applying the criteria to the reference population of journals and Massachusetts academic authors, we measured the following frequencies for lead authors: 0.20 for serving on a scientific advisory board; 0.07 for being an officer, director, or major shareholder in a biotechnology firm, and 0.22 for being listed as an inventor in a related patent or patent application. The joint frequency of articles in the journals reviewed with a lead author that meets one of the three conditions is 0.34. CONCLUSIONS: One of every three articles in our sample has at least one Massachusetts-based author with a financial interest, and 15% of the authors in our sample have a financial interest relevant to one of their publications. For the year 1992, the rate of published voluntary disclosures of financial interest (as defined in our study) is virtually zero, but relatively few scientific and biomedical journals at that time required any such disclosure to journal editors and reviewers. Further research is needed to determine the effectiveness of mandatory disclosure requirements by some journals.     

Research without external funding in North American psychiatry

OBJECTIVE: The authors investigated the extent and characteristics of published psychiatric research from U.S. and Canadian medical schools that was carried out without external funding. METHOD: They reviewed reports of unfunded research in 14 psychiatric journals, tabulating methodological factors and topics of study. They surveyed first authors about their academic duties and resources used in the studies. RESULTS: Unfunded studies represented 26% of research reports, were usually prospective, most commonly dealt with phenomenology/epidemiology or psychopharmacology, used low levels of technology, and were accomplished on a modest budget of time and money. CONCLUSIONS: Unfunded studies make a substantial and economically efficient contribution to psychiatric research. Future investigations should detail the institutional conditions necessary to sustain this type of research productivity.     

125th anniversary of Revista Médica de Chile

The first issue of Revista Médica de Chile was printed in July, 1872. Since then, it has been published monthly, interrupted only for a few months during a Chilean civil war (1891). This medical journal has been devoted mainly to clinical topics in internal medicine, but currently it includes an increasing proportion of research papers in other biomedical and preclinical subjects. This journal is included in the most important international indexes of biomedical publications. Most issues cover also medical education, public health, the ethics of clinical and experimental research, medical administration and the history of medicine. The evolution of medicine in Chile along 125 years is clearly reflected in the contents of this journal. Revista Médica de Chile is one of the oldest medical journals in the world, particularly among those published in Spanish, and a top ranking biomedical publication in Chile.     

Why review articles on the health effects of passive smoking reach different conclusions

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether the conclusions of review articles on the health effects of passive smoking are associated with article quality, the affiliations of their authors, or other article characteristics. DATA SOURCES: Review articles published from 1980 to 1995 were identified through electronic searches of MEDLINE and EMBASE and from a database of symposium proceedings on passive smoking. ARTICLE SELECTION: An article was included if its stated or implied purpose was to review the scientific evidence that passive smoking is associated with 1 or more health outcomes. Articles were excluded if they did not focus specifically on the health effects of passive smoking or if they were not written in English. DATA EXTRACTION: Review article quality was evaluated by 2 independent assessors who were trained, followed a written protocol, had no disclosed conflicts of interest, and were blinded to all study hypotheses and identifying characteristics of articles. Article conclusions were categorized by the 2 assessors and by one of the authors. Author affiliation was classified as either tobacco industry affiliated or not, based on whether the authors were known to have received funding from or participated in activities sponsored by the tobacco industry. Other article characteristics were classified by one of the authors using predefined criteria. DATA SYNTHESIS: A total of 106 reviews were identified. Overall, 37% (39/106) of reviews concluded that passive smoking is not harmful to health; 74% (29/39) of these were written by authors with tobacco industry affiliations. In multiple logistic regression analyses controlling for article quality, peer review status, article topic, and year of publication, the only factor associated with concluding that passive smoking is not harmful was whether an author was affiliated with the tobacco industry (odds ratio, 88.4; 95% confidence interval, 16.4-476.5; P<.001). CONCLUSIONS: The conclusions of review articles are strongly associated with the affiliations of their authors. Authors of review articles should disclose potential financial conflicts of interest, and readers of review articles should consider authors' affiliations when deciding how to judge an article's conclusions.     

Annual review of Asian American Psychology, 2009.

The purpose of this study was to provide a systematic and critical review of research articles on Asian American psychology that were published in 2009. A search using PsycINFO led to the identification of 134 articles, and each of these articles were evaluated in terms of its topic areas, research methodology, and findings. The results showed that the articles covered a wide array of topics, including acculturation and enculturation, adoptees, career, counseling and clinical issues, educational experiences, families, health and health-related behaviors, identity, immigrants and refugees, interpersonal relationships, lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender/intersex/questioning, masculinity, older adults, personality, politics, psychopathology, racism, spirituality, stress and coping, violence, women, and youths. A summary of articles within these topics areas are provided. In addition, various characteristics of this body of literature are presented with their implications for future research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychology and Aging: The first 20 years.

This article provides a review of the first 20 years of Psychology and Aging, the American Psychological Association's first and only scholarly journal devoted to the topic of aging. The authors briefly summarize its history, its contributions to the study of aging, and its broader status as a scholarly publication. One theme highlighted in our review is the diversity of content in the journal throughout its history. Another is the strong impact that articles published in the journal have had on both basic and applied topics in aging. Efforts to encompass the breadth of topics and methodologies in aging research while retaining excellent quality remain the exciting but essential challenge for Psychology and Aging. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reproductive health of the family as a goal of industrial medicine

Modern demographic situation stressed the problems of human reproductive health associated with industrial medical topics. The article suggests to regard a family (child and two parents) as a unit under study in industrial medicine. This methodic approach should work in scientific programs reviewing influence of industrial ecology and environmental factors on reproductivity. The authors suggest elaboration of universal strategy for ecologic and epidemiologic studies to form a scientific branch "Epidemiology of reproductive health" and to elaborate methods for better health management during the present demographic crisis.