[Spanish pediatric publications in PubMed between 1996 and 2001]

To assess and compare the scientific pediatric production of Spanish authors in Pubmed and Journal Citation Reports (JCR) between 1996 and 2001.

We reviewed the first 200 articles that appeared in PubMed between 1996 and 2001 on childhood ("newborn OR neonate OR children OR child OR infant") by Spanish authors (Spain [affiliation]). We compared the quality of study design, sample sizes, subject of the article, impact factor and the authors' specialty, using the chi-squared and/or Student's t-test. The factors related to publication in journals with an impact factor of more than 2 were analyzed using logistic regression analysis.

Only 35 % of the articles selected were performed exclusively in children. Between 1996 and 2001, Spanish pediatric publications included in the Journal Impact Factor increased by 37.5 %. The impact factor between these two years was similar (1.776 vs 1.823; p: NS). An impact factor of more than 2 was related to articles published in non-pediatric journals (OR: 3, 95 % CI: 1.17-7.69, p 0.018), publications including multiple regression analysis in the statistical analysis (OR: 3.27; 95 % CI: 1.12-9.56; p 0.028), multicenter studies (OR: 4.2, 95 % CI: 1.1-22.4, p 0.048) and articles on immunology or molecular biology (OR: 2.45; 95 % CI: 1.01-5.92; p 0.044).

In the last 5 years Spanish pediatric publications in journals included in the JCR increased by 37.5 %. We should promote publications with larger sample sizes, multicentric studies and those with high quality design (clinical trials and cohort studies).