Reference accuracy in four rehabilitation journals.

Area of Science:

• Bibliometrics
• Scientific Publishing
• Rehabilitation Sciences

Background:

• Accurate referencing is crucial for scientific integrity and reproducibility.
• Previous studies have highlighted the prevalence of citation errors in various medical fields.

Purpose of the Study:

• To determine the incidence and types of reference errors in leading general physical therapy and rehabilitation journals.
• To assess the impact of these errors on the retrievability of cited sources.

Main Methods:

• A descriptive, comparative analysis of references from four major journals (AJPMR, APMR, CR, PT) published between 2003 and 2007.
• 100 references were randomly selected per journal, with error presence and MEDLINE retrievability assessed.
• Discrepancies were verified against original publications, with two independent observers evaluating errors.

Main Results:

• A total of 30.7% of references contained errors, with error rates varying from 23% to 44% across journals.
• The most common errors involved author (48.0%) and title (31.7%) elements.
• Only 2% of errors significantly impacted reference retrieval.

Conclusions:

• Reference errors remain a concern in physical therapy and rehabilitation publications.
• While errors are frequent, the majority are minor and do not impede access to the original works.