Political borders as scientific barriers in general practice. Portugal and Spain as a case study

Borders do not only mean the existence of limits, but also of barriers. For example, despite the cultural and geographic proximity, there seems to be a considerable lack of awareness and ignorance among Portuguese and Spanish GP's of their Iberian neighbour's scientific production, particularly among the Spanish side, which is biased towards the work and publications of authors from Anglo-Saxon and Northern European countries.

The authors thus carried out an analysis of the last 12 issues of both the Portuguese and Spanish General Practice flagship journals, counting back from the last issue of 2008.

The authors found out that only 3% of the citations in the Portuguese journal were from Spanish authors, and there were no citations of Portuguese authors in the Spanish journal.

These results highlight an important and common problem in Europe, namely the lack of awareness of the primary care reality in two neighbouring European countries, which results in low levels of scientific exchange, and few joint meetings and publications.