Delay in indexing articles published in major pharmacy practice journals

Area of Science:

• Bibliometrics
• Medical Informatics
• Pharmacy Practice

Background:

• PubMed is a primary database for biomedical literature.
• Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) terms facilitate literature searching and retrieval.
• Timely indexing is crucial for the discoverability of research.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the delay between PubMed database entry and MeSH indexing for articles in major pharmacy practice journals.
• To quantify the time lag for indexing across different pharmacy journals.

Main Methods:

• MEDLINE data for articles from AJHP, Annals of Pharmacotherapy, and Pharmacotherapy (2010-2011) were analyzed.
• PubMed entry dates (Entrez dates) and MeSH indexing dates were collected.
• Median time to indexing, age of unindexed articles, and proportion of unindexed articles were calculated.

Main Results:

• The overall median time to MeSH indexing was 114 days.
• Individual journal median indexing times were: AJHP (107 days), Annals of Pharmacotherapy (131 days), and Pharmacotherapy (114 days).
• Forty articles from Annals of Pharmacotherapy remained unindexed, while all articles from AJHP and Pharmacotherapy were indexed.

Conclusions:

• Pharmacy practice journals experienced a median indexing delay of 114 days for articles published in 2010-2011.
• Indexing completeness varied, with Annals of Pharmacotherapy having a notable proportion of unindexed articles.
• Ensuring timely and complete indexing is vital for the accessibility of pharmacy research.