Case histories: increasing role for major journals

Titling and authorship practices in medical case reports: a diachronic study

“…What is more, so argue the 'opponents' of CR publishing, their anecdotal nature lacks the scientific rigor of large, wellconducted studies. CRs have therefore fallen down the hierarchical ladder of medical evidence, and many 64 Françoise Salager-Meyer et al medical journals, for 'shortage of page space' , now refuse to publish CRs (for a thorough analysis of the growing obsolescence of the psychiatric case report as a knowledge-bearing text, see Berkenkotter 2008).Another reason why this 'endangered species' (Rose and Corn 1984) sometimes receives low esteem and 'is frequently dismissed -unfairly so -as unscientific' (Simpson and Griggs 1985: 403) is because CRs are considered to be non-citable items (Morris 1989), thus lowering the impact factor of journals where citation data rule decisions ( Van der Wall and Wilde 2009; Maisonnneuve et al 2010). Indeed, Patsopoulos et al (2005) found that CRs receive the fewest citations of all other study designs (research papers, clinical controlled trials, meta-analyses, etc).…”

“…Another reason why this 'endangered species' (Rose and Corn 1984) sometimes receives low esteem and 'is frequently dismissed -unfairly so -as unscientific' (Simpson and Griggs 1985: 403) is because CRs are considered to be non-citable items (Morris 1989), thus lowering the impact factor of journals where citation data rule decisions ( Van der Wall and Wilde 2009;Maisonnneuve et al 2010). Indeed, Patsopoulos et al (2005) found that CRs receive the fewest citations of all other study designs (research papers, clinical controlled trials, meta-analyses, etc).…”