Bibliometric indicators of the nursing journals according to the index databases

Objective To analyze the bibliometric indicators of the national and international journals in the area of nursing from the perspective of index databases. Method A historical cohort referring to the period of 2014 to 2016. National nursing journals indexed in the SciELO database and classified in the Qualis as A1, A2 and B1, and international nursing journals with impact factor above 1.0 and below 1.8, indexed in the Web of Science and Scopus Bases, were selected. Nursing specialty periodicals were excluded. The bibliometric indicators were collected from the index databases and imported into Ms Excel for analysis and data tabulation. Results The bibliometric indicators of the different index databases are divergent and cannot be compared. Lower title coverage and shorter calculation periods amplify the distortions between the indicators of national and international journals. Conclusion The internationalization criteria imposed on national journals do not contribute to obtaining or increasing the impact factor. A broader coverage of indexed titles and a longer calculation period for citations represent a significant difference in results. The h-index and CiteScore appear to be better impact indicators for national nursing research.