Scientific papers published in “EMERGENCIAS” from 2000 to 2004: participation of emergency department physicians and comparison with their contribution in indexed journals

Miró O, González-Duque A, Cinesi C, Tomás Vecina S, Pacheco A, Sánchez M, Burillo-Putze G

Aims: To assess the predominant characteristics of scientific papers published by Spanish

clinicians from emergency departments physicians, from 2000 to 2004, in journals

indexed in the Science Citation Index (SCI) database and in the journal EMERGENCIAS,

which is not included in the aforementioned index.

Material and method: All the articles published in the journal EMERGENCIAS during

the period 2000-2004 were reviewed. A scientific paper was considered a Spanish

emergency department physician document if the setting was Spain and if it included

any of the following expressions related to an emergency service: urgencias, urgències,

urxencias, larrialdiak, larrialdia, emergentziak, emergencias, emergències, emerxencias,

emergency, 061, SAMU, 1006, SUC, SEM, SEMSA, SERCAM, 112, DEIAK or EPES. The

same strategy was used to search for journals in the SCI during the same period. All

data and bibliometric indicators used in previous studies by our group were registered

and analyzed. A slightly modified index of the text “Tratado de Medicina de Urgencias”

by Tintinalli was used to determine the lines of investigation.

Results: Throughout the whole study period, the Spanish emergency department clinicians

published 594 scientific papers; among which 290 appeared in EMERGENCIAS

and 304 were indexed in SCI. 51% were written by clinicians from 26 hospitalary

emergency departments and 3 emergency systems, in addition to the SEMES. Significant

differences were observed in the contribution of each community are centre to

the scientific prroduction, the bibliometric characteristics and the topics reported between

EMERGENCIAS and the SCI. Madrid prevailed in EMERGENCIAS, Catalonia and

Andalusia in the SCI and Galicia and the Basque Country had a balanced scientific production.

EMERGENCIAS had a lower number of original studies, signed by fewer authors,

emergency department physicians more frequently signed in first place, and frequency

of physicians from extrahospitalary emergency departments and independent

emergency services was hister.

Conclusions: The volume of studies by emergency department physicians pulishing in

EMERGENCIAS is similar to that of studies published in journals indexed in the SCI albeit

with differences in the bibliometric characteristics and subjects.

Burillo-Putze G, Cinesi C, González-Duque A, Miró O, Pacheco A, Sánchez M, Tomás Vecina S