Related Experiment Videos
How well are journal and clinical article characteristics associated with the journal impact factor? a retrospective
Cynthia Lokker1, R Brian Haynes, Rong Chu
1Health Information Research Unit, McMaster University, CRL 125, 1280 Main Street West, Hamilton, ON, Canada. lokkerc@mcmaster.ca
Objective:
Journal impact factor (JIF) is often used as a measure of journal quality. A retrospective cohort study determined the ability of clinical article and journal characteristics, including appraisal measures collected at the time of publication, to predict subsequent JIFs.
Methods:
Clinical research articles that passed methods quality criteria were included. Each article was rated for relevance and newsworthiness by 3 to 24 physicians from a panel of more than 4,000 practicing clinicians. The 1,267 articles (from 103 journals) were divided 60∶40 into derivation (760 articles) and validation sets (507 articles), representing 99 and 88 journals, respectively. A multiple regression model was produced determining the association of 10 journal and article measures with the 2007 JIF.
Results:
Four of the 10 measures were significant in the regression model: number of authors, number of databases indexing the journal, proportion of articles passing methods criteria, and mean clinical newsworthiness scores. With the number of disciplines rating the article, the 5 variables accounted for 61% of the variation in JIF (R(2) = 0.607, 95% CI 0.444 to 0.706, P<0.001).
Conclusion:
For the clinical literature, measures of scientific quality and clinical newsworthiness available at the time of publication can predict JIFs with 60% accuracy.
Related Concept Videos
Types of Biopharmaceutical Studies: Controlled and Non-Controlled Approaches
Non-controlled studies, commonly employed for initial exploration, lack a control group, rendering them susceptible to biases and external influences. In contrast, controlled...
Clinical Trials
There are four phases in a clinical trial. A phase one...
Bias in Epidemiological Studies
Observational Studies
There are three types of observational studies – Prospective, retrospective, and cross-sectional.
Prospective Study
Prospective studies, also known as longitudinal or cohort studies, are carried out by collecting future data from groups sharing similar characteristics. One example of...
Clinical Trials: Overview
Factors Affecting Illness
For instance, risk factors are connected to illness, disability,...