Document Type : Original Article
Authors
1
PhD Student in Biostatistics, Department of Biostatistics, School of Medicine, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran.
2
Lecture, Department of Epidemiology, Faculty of Medicine, Shahroud University of Medical Sciences, Shahroud, Iran.
3
Assistant Professor, Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Faculty of Health, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran.
Abstract
Introduction: Today, huge quantity of medical journals with indescribable quality, have confused health researchers while choosing a suitable journal to publish their scientific results. It seems that quality measuring criteria of journals could have solved this problem to some extent. In this study, we studied quality of journals of obstetrics and gynecology field indexed in the valid databases, and then based on indices of ranking journals.
Materials and Methods: This descriptive study, was conducted in May 1392 by method of assessment. Information about all obstetrics and gynecology journals indexed in the database Scopus, were collected from the databases ISI, Pubmed and Scopus. Spearman's rank correlation coefficient and Kolmogorov–Smirnov test was used for analysis data. Minitab 17 and SPSS 22 were used for data analysis. P value≤0.05 was considered to be significant.
Result: Of the148 Journals of obstetrics and gynecology field which were found in the Scopus database, 89 journals (60.14%) were indexed in the Pubmed and 78 (52.70%) journals were indexed in the ISI. About 42.57% of this journals publish in England and USA. The mean impact factor, SJR, and Eigenfactor score of obstetrics and gynecology journals were 1.825±1.428, 0.459±0.495, and 0.00766±0.011, respectively. Spearman's rank correlation coefficient was 0.895 (between impact factor and SJR), 0.819 (between impact factor and Eigenfactor score), and 0.801 (between SJR and Eigenfactor score).
Conclusion: Our study showed significant association between considered indices of journals ranking: Impact Factor, Eigenfactor score and Scimago Journal Ranking, for journals in the field of obstetrics and gynecology which were indexed in ISI and Scopus databases. The results also showed that although Eigenfactor score and SJR can be better indices than Impact Factor, but considering impact factor cannot be ignored while choosing a proper journal in this discipline, due to its public acceptance in the scientific community, availability and ease of use.
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