[Anales Españoles de Pediatría 2001. Bibliometric indicators of scientific quality]

BACKGROUND. One important objective of Anales Españoles de Pediatría (An Esp Pediatr) is to be included in Journal Citation Reports-Science Citation Index and the main step to achieve this is to increase the scientific quality of this Spanish journal. Bibliometric indicators are important tools used to determine the quality of scientific publications.

A bibliometric study of all the original articles published in An Esp Pediatr in 2001 (n 76) was performed; bibliometric indicators were classified into quantitative and qualitative (statistical analyses and level of scientific evidence). The results were compared with the original articles published in the journal from 1994 to June 2000 (n 733) and with the original articles published in Pediatrics in 2001 (n 276).

The differences found in An Esp Pediatr between the two study periods were the following in 2001: greater collaboration between epidemiologists and/or biostatisticians in the authorship of articles (19.7 %), increased complexity of statistical analyses (statistical accessibility > 7 in 25 %) and greater use of evidence-based methodological concepts (19.7 %). However, no improvement was found in the scientific evidence (evidence was good in only 1.4 % and average in 25.7 %). Other aspects of interest were a lower number of original articles (due to an increase in other types of articles, such as Letters to the Editor or Special Articles) and a greater percentage of articles on evidence-based medicine or articles using its methodology. The differences in bibliometric indicators of quality found between An Esp Pediatr and Pediatrics continued to be considerable: statistical accessibility, evidence-based methodological concepts and scientific evidence (for example, good evidence was 22 times more frequent in Pediatrics).

The scientific quality of An Esp Pediatr improved in 2001 compared with that of previous years, but the differences found between this journal and the gold standard of Pediatrics are still considerable. We found greater interest in articles related to the new scientific paradigm of evidence-based medicine, which uses the medical literature more effectively to guide medical practice.