Impact factor, scientific production and quality of Brazilian medical journals

Abstract

Brazilian scientific community is highly influenced by the impact factor rates of the journals where their production is published. There is an indicator that is used and accepted, in Brazil, by the majority of researchers, research and educational institutions, and also by most research and post-graduation financing agencies, especially CNPq and Capes; it is the Science Citation Index (SCI), from the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) databases, which is published in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR). ISI indexes nearly 16,000 journals, within more than 160 areas of knowledge. Among these titles, there are 15 Brazilian journals, carefully selected, that represent 0.09% of all ISI indexed titles. Considering the 15 Brazilian journals, only one (Computational and Applied Mathematics-Cambridge, MA, USA) reached an impact factor higher than 1, the others ranges from 0.764 to 0.032, according to JCR 2001. The impact factor is determined by dividing the number of citations received by the journal articles within a year on ISI indexed journals, to the number of works published by the journal during the two previous years. For instance: the 423 articles published by Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz in 1999 and 2000 were cited 272 times, in 2001, on ISI indexed journals; therefore, Memórias' impact factor, in 2001, achieved 0.643 (272/ 423). Other indicators are also considered, such as the Immediacy Index that points out the relation between the citations, in 2001, of papers published in that same year, and the Cited Half-life that accumulates from previous years. The SciELO program (Scientific Electronic Library Online), coordinated by Bireme and Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo-Fapesp (São Paulo State Research Support Foundation), indexes 91 from nearly 500 Brazilian journals. This number represents about 18% of national journals, including those indexed by ISI, by Medline/Index Medicus and Psyinfo (APA) and others selected by SciELO Consultant Committee, according to the journal scientific guidelines, the Publishing Board, periodicity, punctuality, number of articles during the year, among other criteria. Following ISI similar criteria and, in our opinion, more adapted to Brazilian reality and less discriminatory, even because of a continuous evaluation process accomplished by an Intelligent Consultant Committee, SciELO includes journals of excellent scientific quality and medical-social importance. Among these, we call attention to

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