Open Journal Systems

ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTIONS

Received: November 11^th 2014

Accepted: March 5^th 2015

Bibliometric analysis of Revista Médica del IMSS in the Scopus database for the period between 2005-2013

Francisco García-Gómez,*^,a Fernando Ramírez-Méndez^†,b

*ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7427-8732

^aCoordinación del Centro Nacional de Investigación Documental en Salud (CENAIDS), Centro Médico Nacional Siglo XXI, Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social/Grupo Interdisciplinario de Estudios Métricos (GINEM)

^†ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-4774-6195

^bCentro de Documentación en Salud 3DF-04-GO, Unidad Médica de Alta Especialidad Hospital de Gineco-Obstetricia No. 4 “Luis Castelazo Ayala”, Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social/Grupo Interdisciplinario de Estudios Métricos (GINEM)

Distrito Federal, México

Communication with: Francisco García-Gómez

Telephone: (55) 5627 6900, extension 21153

Email:: francisco.garciag@imss.gob.mx; fragargo@gmail.com

Objective: To analyze the number of articles of Revista Médica del Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social (Rev Med Inst Mex Seguro Soc) in the Scopus database and describe principal quantitative bibliometric indicators of scientific publications during the period between 2005 to 2013.

Methods: Scopus database was used limited to the period between 2005 to 2013. The analysis cover mainly title of articles with the title of Revista Médica del Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social and its possible modifications. For the analysis, Scopus, Excel and Access were used.

Results: 864 articles were published during the period between 2005 to 2013 in the Scopus database. We identified authors with the highest number of contributions including articles with the highest citation rate and forms of documents cited. We also divided articles by subjects, types of documents and other bibliometric indicators which characterize the publications.

Conclusions: The use of Scopus brings the possibility of analyze with an external tool the visibility of the scientific production published in the Revista Médica del IMSS. The use of this database also contributes to identify the state of science in México, as well as in the developing countries.

Keywords: Bibliometrics; Periodicals as topic; Scientific publication indicators

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Specialized literature in information science indicates that bibliometrics is a part of scientometrics that applies mathematical and statistical methods to all of scientific literature and the authors who produce it, with the aim of studying and analyzing scientific activity. Bibliometric laws help to do this, based on statistical behavior, that throughout time have shown the different elements that are part of scientific activity.^1,2

For decades the database Science Citation Index (SCI), created by Eugene Garfield in the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), represented the only comprehensive tool for the measurement of scientific publications. Currently there are several means by which scientific documents are communicated and distributed; even now there are new ways to track the citations of these documents, and new habits are forming for the consumption and uptake of information available online.

The Web of Knowledge from Thomson Scientific has been working as such since 1997. It is a platform composed of several databases whose basic core citation indexes are the Web of Science (WoS): Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI), Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Arts & Humanities Citation Index (AHCI) and Journal Citation Report (JCR).

The current coverage of Web of Science and Journal Citation Report, overall, is 10,800 journal titles, divided into: SCI (6100 titles), SSCI (1790 titles) and AHCI (1125 titles). Of these 9015 titles, 300 journals accumulate more than 50% of citations per year, i.e. more than 15 million citations. SCI and JCR have selective choice on their scientific content and maintain strict quality standards.

Moreover, the database Elsevier from Scopus was created in late 2004 and covers most of the areas of knowledge and indexes over 21,000 journal titles from over 5,000 international publishers. It contains over 50 million references. Scopus covers 75% more journals than WoS. It also incorporates a greater number of Latin American and non-Anglo-Saxon journals. In December 2007 the SCImago group, which brings together Spanish universities in collaboration with Elsevier, launched the SCImago Journal Rank (SJR), calculated in Scopus. This indicator is equivalent to the impact factor of the Journal Citation Report of the WoS.

The Revista Médica del Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social (Rev Med Inst Mex Seguro Soc) is not included in the Web of Science databases, which currently makes it difficult to analyze its visibility using this tool. However, it is included in Medline as of 2005 and is in turn included in Scopus, so that the analysis of the data contained in these databases provides relevant information on scientific production published in this journal.  
The objective of this study was to analyze the visibility of the Revista Médica IMSS in the Scopus database and to describe the main quantitative bibliometric indicators of scientific production published during the 2005-2013 period.

Methods

The Scopus database was used to conduct this study because it includes the most important international and national journals in the biomedical area, including the Revista Médica IMSS. The search for information was limited to the 2005-2013 period. The collection and analysis of data took place from February 17^th to 19^th, 2014.   

The search strategy was implemented in the specific fields for the title of the publication (Source Title) with the term Revista Médica del Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social and its possible variants, as with the field for ISSN number of the journal. The inclusion period was limited to the years 2005-2013, because Scopus includes two periods of coverage of the journal, and inclusion in Medline began in 2005. Additionally, the search was limited to the areas of life sciences (life sciences) and health sciences (health sciences) within the themes that Scopus covers, and all types of document (Document Type-All) were included.

The data obtained from the author and affiliation fields were standardized to eliminate inconsistencies, errors, and variations. For the data analysis, the analysis tools integrated in the Scopus database itself were used, as well as Excel and Access programs for concentration, analysis, and creation of graphics with the data obtained. In addition, to identify the types of documents published in the journal, as well as to determine the themes, Medline version of Ovid was used.

Moreover, the value equivalent to the impact factor of the journal was obtained from Scimago Journal Rank (SJR).

Results

Medline includes 944 records of the Revista Médica IMSS for the 2005-2013 period. For 2013 they report 118 documents. Meanwhile Scopus includes 864 records for the same period, 80 records fewer than Medline. This indicates that the records of the Revista Médica IMSS are outdated in Scopus. However, for the purposes of analyzing Scopus this variation does not affect the results. Table I shows the number of articles published in Medline and Scopus and its distribution in the years of the study period.

864 papers published in the Revista Médica IMSS during the 2005-2013 period were identified covered by Scopus databases, according to the methodology described.   

Evolution of production

Table II describes the annual production of documents published in the Revista Médica IMSS. A progressive increase in scientific production is seen. The 2011 appears as the year of greatest publication, while 2005 has the least number of articles included.

Figure 1 shows the progression of the production of the works published in the Revista Médica IMSS during the period under review; an upward trend is seen.

The trend of the articles published in Revista Médica IMSS actually remains a more or less stable number; the increase in some years can be attributed to the fact that additional supplements are published for the fascicles corresponding to a volume. Although the graph shows a sharp decline, this is because, as mentioned at the beginning, Scopus is not including all articles published during 2013.

Document types

According to the types of documents used by Medline and Scopus, the type of document most published was the article (62.5%), followed by the case report and the comparative study (Table III).

Language of publication

The language in which the most papers are published is Spanish (846 papers, representing 97.9%) and only 18 papers published in English were found (2.1%).

Production by Author

In the analysis of the authors of articles published, 2243 names of authors were identified who sign the works in the Revista Médica IMSS. Beforehand it was necessary to refine and standardize a total of 3184 names that appear with different variations for many authors. Such variations in names can be attributed to errors in the Scopus database itself, deficiencies indexing names in Medline, and even variations in the Revista Médica IMSS itself, so if these variations were not taken into consideration and standardized, the results of identifying individual author production would be significantly affected.  

Examples of these variations are authors who appear interchangeably in the database with the names: Fajardo Gutiérrez A., Fajardo-Gutiérrez A. or Fajardo-Gutievrez A.; and Torres-Arreola L., del Pilar Torres-Arreola L., Torres-Arreola L.P. or Del Pilar Torres-Arreola L., among others.

Table IV presents individual production of documents published for the first 30 authors.

It should be noted that in this study the individual production by authors is not analyzed, which would be covered by a separate analysis; it is the analysis of the overall production of this journal in the indicated period. Nor does it consider the position of authorship in the articles such as lead author or co-author or position in the order of authorship.

Visibility of production

Regarding the visibility of the scientific production published in this journal, 330 works were found to have been cited at least once in articles published in various journals. This shows that 38.2% of the published works have received citations identified within Scopus (Table V). The 330 articles accumulate on the whole 706 citations, averaging 0.8 citations per article during the 2005-2013 period.  

The results show that 178 articles have received one citation, 73 have received two citations, and 34 were cited three times; also nine articles received four citations and 15 had five. This means that 35% of cited articles have received between one and five citations. Meanwhile only four articles received 10 citations or more. The most-cited article received 13 citations.

Table VI shows the distribution of the works published each year, the cumulative number of citations received, the average number of citations, and h-index. 2006 has the largest number of citations received (157), followed by 2008 and 2007 with 138 and 131 citations accumulated, respectively. 2013 data do not represent the entire production and are partial, since only Scopus includes that information. Between 2005 and 2008 the highest number of citations received throughout the period under review is grouped: 551 citations, i.e. 78% of accumulated citations.  

Most cited articles

Table VII presents the 10 articles with the most accumulated citations. It is noted that these accumulated 95 citations in total, i.e. 13.4% of the 706 references mentioned; in addition, these articles were published in 2005 and 2006. Appendices 1, 2 and 3 show the articles that cite the three most cited articles.

Journals citing published works

389 titles of national and foreign journals were identified that cited the 330 papers published in Revista Médica IMSS that have received citations (Table VIII). The first ten places are occupied by six Mexican journals, led by the journals Ginecología y Obstetricia de México, and Medicina Interna de México.

Language of journals citing the Revista Médica IMSS

The languages ​​of articles citing the Revista Médica IMSS are mainly English and Spanish, as shown in Table IX.

Thematic areas

By analyzing the topics assigned to the articles of the Revista Médica IMSS by the National Library of Medicine of the United States (NLM) with the application of the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH), 1647 Main topics (including relevant subtopics) were identified. Note that each item can receive two or more topics that describe its main content. Fifty major themes are shown assigned to published documents, which are associated with diabetes mellitus, medical education, health personnel, clinical practice guidelines, quality of life, and others (Table X).

Words in the titles of articles

The most-used words in the titles of the articles published in the Revista Médica IMSS are: paciente, clínica, diabetes, riesgo, IMSS, informe, factores y caso.

National and international collaboration

Most of the published works have been collaborations between units of IMSS itself. The 25 affiliations with the most distribution of published work are presented (Table XI). However, a significant part of the scientific collaboration was developed with more than 50 national institutions and some international. 53 institutions other than IMSS were identified, among which are the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Hospital General de México, Secretaría de Salud, Universidad de Guadalajara, Hospital Infantil de México Federico Gómez, Hospital Civil de Guadalajara, and Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Médicas y Nutrición Salvador Zubirán. The foreign institutions include Universidad de Cartagena, Fine Morning Hospital and Research Center, Hospital de Gran Canaria Dr. Negrin, Temple University Hospital, Universidad de Salamanca, Universität Bremen, and University of Miami.

Impact factor of Revista Médica IMSS

Scopus uses the Scimago Journal Rank (SJR) as equivalent indicator to the impact factor (IF) of scientific publications given by the Journal Citation Report (JCR). The SJR assigned to the Revista Médica IMSS a value of 0.112.

Limitations

Based on the experience of the authors of this study, acquired through the development of similar studies, it is pertinent to mention that on the one hand it is possible to make mistakes or limitations in the methodological design of this analysis and on the other hand, the tools themselves have some bugs or limitations that may alter the results and final presentation.^3-6

Discussion

Bibliometric studies represent one of the most widely-used procedures to measure the scientific activity of an institution, country, scientific community, region, or publication. Major publications such as the Revista Médica IMSS require bibliometric studies to help understand their visibility within the national and international scientific and academic community.

Quantitative bibliometric studies do not address issues about the quality of the documents analyzed in particular or the publications in general. They intended to give a broad overview of the results. Other similar studies agree with the methodology used and show similar aspects to this study.⁷

It should be noted as a positive fact that Scopus includes a large number of Latin American and Mexican publications that publish in Spanish language and the Revista Médica IMSS is among these. It is difficult to identify the production of this journal in specialized databases such as Science Citation Index, so the fact that Scopus includes it is an excellent opportunity to review the visibility of the documents it publishes.

The results should be reviewed and expressed objectively to avoid wrong or subjective interpretations. However, they do show that there is a high degree of inbreeding in the production of documents published in the Revista Médica IMSS and that there is a low production of other documents such as clinical trials, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses.

Conclusions and recommendations

Using Scopus again provides the opportunity to analyze with a tool external to IMSS the visibility of the scientific production published in one of its publications, the Revista Médica IMSS, plus it helps to identify the state of science in Mexico.

In interpreting the results of this study, it is important to take into account the general limitations of bibliometric indicators and the design of the study itself.

The low number of citations given to articles published in the Revista Médica IMSS reflects only what the Scopus database can identify within the core of journals included. Moreover, the presentation of these results does not mean that others works published in the period under review have not been cited by other sources, and it must not be forgotten that the analysis is based only on data reported by Scopus.

It would be appropriate to analyze and compare the Revista Médica IMSS with other national journals using the same tool and the same methodology.
In the case of IMSS it would be convenient to develop editorial and bibliometric projects that help identify the totality of published output, plus allowing the creation of reliable and comprehensive databases to reflect the total content of the journal since its first publication. Moreover, to have a more comprehensive view of the scientific production published in the Revista Médica IMSS and its national and international visibility, further studies are needed covering longer periods that include everything published and use sources other than Scopus. 

To help give more projection and visibility to the Revista Médica IMSS, their participation and inclusion in projects such as LILACS and SciELO Mexico are seen as important, as well as projects of open access to information as the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and others, which will result in the largest national and international penetration.

It is clear that the Revista Médica IMSS has met the objectives for which it was created; however, in this globalized world in which scientific information plays an important role, it faces the challenge of modernization, increasing its visibility and influence in the medical knowhow of the country, the region, and the world

Recognition

This work is part of studies conducted by the Grupo Interdisciplinario de Estudios Métricos (GINEM).

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