Accuracy of references in three critical care nursing journals

Reference lists serve as a resource for the reader and provide support for the author's ideas. Errors in references reflect poorly on the author and journal and may prevent locating the referenced articles. The purpose of this study was to determine the number and types of errors in references in 3 critical care nursing journals: Journal of PeriAnesthesia Nursing, American Journal of Critical Care, and Critical Care Nurse. There were 2,444 citations in 13 issues of these journals during the study period. Ten percent of the references from each journal was selected randomly and analyzed for accuracy. Of the 244 references examined, 56 contained errors for an overall error rate of 22.9%. Major errors, such as misspelled or omitted author names and initials, occurred in 19.6% of the references. Minor errors, including non-first page discrepancies, occurred in 4.5% of the references. Errors in author names combined with incorrect or missing volume or issue numbers were the 2 most common errors, accounting for 61% of errors. The overall error rate for these 3 critical care nursing journals was lower than the rates reported for other nursing journals.