[Impact factor of Latin American medical journals].

BACKGROUND

Latin American medical journals have a low impact factor. Higher quality articles originated in Latin American countries are published in North American or European journals.

AIM

To analyze the impact factor of Latin-American journals according to the language of publication.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

The data base of periodic journals of the Thomson ISI (Journal of Citation Report) in the year 2004 was used for the analysis. Four countries with more than one journal in the data base of the Thomson ISI were included (Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico).

RESULTS

Few Latin-American journals are included in the Thomson ISI data base. The mean impact factor was 0.76 (0.23-3.2) for eight Mexican journals, 0.66 (0.10-2.1) for eight Chilean journals, 0.39 (0.06-0.7) for five Argentinian journals and 0.41 (0.09-1.1) for 16 Brazilian journals. The mean impact factor for 11 journals written in English was 0.74 (0.12-2.1), 0.53 (0.09-3.2) for 18 bilingual journals and 0.28 (0.06-0.56) for eight journals written in native language. The differences between countries and languages were not statistically significant.

CONCLUSIONS

The journal impact factor was similar in the four countries studied. A non-significant higher impact factor was observed in Latin-American journals published in English.