Frequency of uncommon abbreviations in medical journals

Although the use of abbreviations not understood by the average reader is discouraged by journal editors, I nevertheless found that 43% of 147 articles published during June 1993 in eight general and surgical journals contained uncommon abbreviations. In 26 (18%) of the 147 articles, all the abbreviations and their explanatory decoding words appeared at the front of the article, either in the abstract or in the first paragraph. This up front position makes easier the reader's back-search. In 37 other articles (25%), at least one uncommon abbreviation was decoded somewhere in the body of the article. In 21 articles (14%) the uncommon abbreviations appeared in the concluding or summating paragraph(s) and the explanatory decoding words were buried in the body of the article, thus making difficult the reader's back-search. Corrective action might include (1) editorial and peer review enforcement of the "no nonstandard abbreviation" policy, which is easily done with computerized word processing; (2) tabulation of all abbreviations with their decoding words either just below the abstract at the front of the article or just above the bibliography at the rear; or (3) expansion of each abbreviation in a footnote at the bottom of the appropriate page.