[Scientific production in infectious diseases in Spain (1991-2001): position within the European Union]

Medical research in our geographic area has undergone significant changes over the last three decades. The objective of this study was to quantitatively determine Spain's medical research output published in the journals included in the Infectious Diseases section of the Journal Citation Reports, and to compare it with that of other European Union (EU) countries.

The PubMed Web site (MEDLINE) was used to retrieve medical articles published by authors from Spain and other EU countries from 1991 to 2001 in 36 infectious disease journals included in the Infectious Diseases section of the Journal Citation Reports.

We retrieved a total of 17,899 documents published by EU authors during the study period. Authors from Spanish institutions contributed 1,340 documents, 7.5% of the overall EU production. Spain ranked in the sixth position of the EU by number of papers. It remained in the same position after adjusting for gross national product and dropped to the ninth position after correcting for population. The number of articles published increased from 72 in the biennium 1991-1992 to 442 in the biennium 2000-2001. Spanish production rose by 514%, as compared with a median increase of 149% in the other EU countries. Spain was the first producer of articles from the EU in four journals: Diagnostic Microbiology and Infectious Disease (27.6%), European Journal of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (24.8%), American Journal of Infection Control (21.8%) and Microbial Drug Resistance (17.5%).

Spanish scientific production in infectious diseases has increased substantially in the period 1991-2001.