[Spanish articles about quality evaluation of documents and clinic and health information systems (1983-1992)]

To analize the number, characteristics and content of the articles on quality evaluation of health records and information systems published by Spanish authors in biomedical journals (1983-1992).

Sources were IME and MEDLINE databases, journal summaries and bibliographies from the retrieved items. Originals or review articles and communications were included. Variables analyzed were: publication date; kind of document; coauthorship number; authors/items ratio; institutions where the authors work; journal of publication. The content analysis included the main aspects studied and the kind of document or system investigated.

87 documents were retrieved, 74 being original papers and 13 communications. Along the period a gradual growth was observed and a maximum was reached in 1991 with 18 items. The total number of authors was 370, 5 authors with three or more items. The maximum number of items per author was 6. The ratio authors/items was 4.1. The most productive institutions were hospitals and governmental centers. Twenty four different journals were identified, 5 publishing the 74.4% of papers. 61 (82.4%) of the 74 articles correspond to evaluative research and 13 (17.6%) dealt with questions related with quality but were not evaluative researches. The questions more frequently evaluated in the 61 articles were the completeness of data in clinical records (22 articles); the accuracy of data recorded in the documents used for death certification (7 articles) and the accuracy of data recorded in the Hospital Patient's Logbook (5 articles).

An increase of scientific production in this field and its concentration in a reduced number of magazines has taken place in Spain in the past few years of study. The content in most of the articles is about formal aspects of clinic and sanitary information.