@article{Vinther_Rosenberg_2012, title={Impact factor trends for general medical journals: non-English-language journals are lagging behind}, volume={142}, url={https://smw.ch/index.php/smw/article/view/1589}, DOI={10.4414/smw.2012.13572}, abstractNote={<p><p>BACKGROUND: The impact factor (IF) is a common citation metric used for evaluating and comparing scientific journals within a certain field. Previous studies have shown that IFs are increasing. However, rates may depend on journal publication language.</p> <p>The aim of this study was to determine IF values and trends for general medical journals, comparing non-English-language with English-language journals.</p> <p>METHODS: For all journals categorised as “medicine, general and internal” (n = 150) in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR), publication language, country of origin and IFs for the last 10 years were recorded (2001–2010).</p> <p>Data were classified, analysed descriptively and compared using non-parametric tests.</p> <p>RESULTS: From 2001 to 2010, IFs increased for English-language and non-English-language journals (p <0.001). During the 10-year study period, IFs were higher for English-language than for non-English-language journals (p <0.001).</p> <p>The proportion of non-English-language journals included in the JCR was 12.2% in 2001 and 18.0% in 2010 (p = 0.28).</p> <p>INTERPRETATION: From 2001 to 2010, IFs increased significantly for English-language and non-English-language journals. When comparing IF values year-by-year (2001–2010), IFs were significantly higher for English-language than for non-English-language journals.</p> <p>In an international scientific community with English as the universal language of science, non-English-language journals should consider changing publication language, and adopt either a bi- or a monolingual approach. Publishing in English will increase citation counts and thus IFs, but, more importantly, scientific findings will be accessible to a much wider audience.</p></p>}, number={3940}, journal={Swiss Medical Weekly}, author={Vinther, Siri and Rosenberg, Jacob}, year={2012}, month={Sep.}, pages={w13572} }