Estudio bibliométrico de las publicaciones españolas sobre diagnóstico por la imágen(1994-1998)

Resum

Objective. To analyse spanish production of research articles on diagnostic imaging published during the period between 1994 and 1998. The analysis includes spanish and foreign journals Materials and Methods: starting from an exhaustive profile of search, databases IME and Medline were consulted. Works without scientific character, not relevant or overlapping, have been excluded. Laws and models commonly used in bibliometry have been applied: Prices law on the increase of the scientific literature; Bradfords law on dispersion of the scientific production and Lotka's law on the author's productivity. Extensive bibliometric analysis of journals has been performed, together with the analysis of institutions (productivity, collaboration and institutional geographical location), authors (productivity, collaboration, and institutional afilliations), socioeconomic indicators (estimate of Spanish Fondo de Investigaciones Sanitarias - FIS- assigned to research projects and the number of research projects granted by this center), impact factor of journals and authors, topics and imaging techniques. Results: 2.981 articles published in 519 different journals were analysed. 56.3% of the works were published in spanish journals, being publised the rest of articles (43.7%) in foreign journals. The most significant characteristics found were the following: - continuous growth of publications in foreign journals. - Significant dispersion of the publications in journals focused on very different subject areas. - High productivity of the spanish journal Radiología (20% of the articles) - Important transitory population of authors (71%) - Predominant clinical (hospital) professional afilliation among authors - High index of collaboration (5,17 signatures per article) - High productivity from hospital institutions located in Madrid and Barcelona - Low inter-departamental and inter-institutional collaboration - Low Productivity of articles from the limited research projects conceded by FIS in the thematic area of diagnostic imaging. - High impact factor of diagnostic imaging publications in cardiology - Most techniques used in the articles were ultrasonography (31%), magnetic resonance imaging (17.6%) and computer X-ray tomography (17,4%). Conclusions. Who publishes about diagnostic imaging in Spain? Within the group of authors considered as "great producers", 48,5% of works were published by radiologists. Therefore, more than 50% of the articles were published by authors not related with radiology departments, preponderantly cardiologists, gynaecologists and nuclear doctors. Nevertheless, "Radiología", the spanish official radiological journal, despite not being included in Index Medicus or in its database Medline, is the most representative journal, in terms of volume, of the scientific activity reported in the thematic area of diagnostic imaging in Spain. This journal constitutes the Bradford's nucleus of medical journals devoted to diagnostic imaging. Key words. Diagnostic imaging. Scientific publications. Database IME. Database MEDLINE. Bibliometric study.