Evolution of different bibliometric and quality markers of the journal EMERGENCIAS between 2005 and 2009, and comparison with those of the same specialty included in Journal Citation Reports

Miró O, Martín-Sánchez FJ, Burillo-Putze G, Julián Jiménez A, Tomás Vecina S, Pacheco A, Sánchez M

Objectives: To calculate 5-year (2005-2009) quality and bibliometric indicators for

Emergencias and compare them to those of other journals specialized in emergency

medicine.

Methods: Manual review of articles published in Emergencias and consultation of the Web

of Science (WoS) database to record the following information for other journals for each

year of the study period: number and type of articles published; number, nationality,

professional affiliation, and academic degrees of authors; number and type of cites; and

cites in both WoS-indexed journals and in Emergencias (self-citation). The self-citation rates,

immediacy indices, and impact factors were calculated for Emergencias and compared with

those of the 13 emergency medicine journals listed in Journal Citation Reports (JCR).

Results: The number of manuscripts received by Emergencias increased significantly by

157%, going from 102 in 2005 to 262 in 2009. The total number of articles published

increased from 87 to 128 (47%), while the number of original research articles grew

from 26 to 43 (65%). The percentage of articles by non-Spanish authors also rose, from

2.3% to 10.2%, an increase of 335%. The number of cites rose from 12 to 117 (875%

increase). The acceptance rate decreased significantly by 40%, going from 81% to 49%.

Reviewer response time was also cut, by 53%, going from 55 to 26 days. Editorial

decision time decreased from 142 to 62 days (reduction of 56%). The self-citation rate

decreased significantly, descending to 43% in 2009, while the immediacy index

increased to 0.16 in 2006 (0.689, counting self-citation). The impact factor excluding

self-citation was 0.816 in 2009 (1.437, counting self-citation). Most of these indicators

are within the range of the 13 comparable journals listed in the JCR in 2008.

Conclusion: Emergencias has undergone highly favorable changes over the past 5 years,

improving many of the main quality and bibliometric indicators. At the end of the study

period the statistics for Emergencias were within the range calculated for emergency

medicine journals in the JCR.

Burillo-Putze G, Julián Jiménez A, Martín-Sánchez FJ, Miró O, Pacheco A, Sánchez M, Tomás Vecina S