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* From the Department of Anesthesiology, Aretaieion Hospital, Medical School, University of Athens, Greece, the Department of Anesthesiology
Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA, and the Department of Anesthesiology
St Savas Hospital, Athens, Greece
Dr. A. Fassoulaki, 57-59 Raftopoulou street, 11744 Athens, Greece. Phone: +301- 9024530; Fax: +301-9024530; E-mail: afassou1{at}otenet.gr
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Abstract |
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Method: Four hundred thirty-eight anesthesiologists in Canada, the United States of America (USA), and Europe were polled about the importance of the IF regarding hiring, promotions, funding of research and to express their personal views.
Results: IF of a candidate's publications is a criterion in 38% of academic appointments in Canada and USA vs 81% in Europe (P <0.0001). The importance of IF to obtain funding is greater in Europe (46%) than in North America (17%) (P <0.0001). Twenty-three percent and 50% of Canadian and American anesthesiologists respectively believe that IF affects financial support (P=0.0389). European anesthesiologists value the IF more than the North Americans (67% vs 31%, P <0.0001). Forty-five percent, 67%, and 56% of the Canadian, American and European anesthesiologists respectively estimate that IF reflects journal quality. Sixty-four percent of anesthesiologists in North America vs 81% in Europe (P=0.0175) pursue to publish in high IF journals. Eighty-six percent, 85% and 90% of the Canadian, American and European anesthesiologists believe that the IF of a journal can be manipulated. Finally, 79%, 67%, and 81% of the Canadian, American, and European anesthesiologists believe that IF should be improved but 33%, 35%, and 30% believe that it should be abandoned.
Conclusions: IF for academic appointments and funding is more important in Europe than in North America. More than 50% of anesthesiologists agree that IF needs to be improved.
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Introduction |
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Some have suggested the IF should be abandoned,5–7 several recommend its cautious application and improvement,2,4 but only few support it as the best operational measure.8,9 The editor of a journal may tend to adjust his/her policy so as to increase the journal's IF.8 However, most of the above mentioned publications are editorials or reviews and only very few provide data in favour of or against the importance of the IF.
In this study we sought the views of North American and European anesthesiologists on the IF by asking them to fill a questionnaire on the perceived importance of the IF for promotions, funding as well as on their personal views concerning its advantages, disadvantages and future.
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Methods |
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The first questions (part A) investigated the relationship between appointments and promotions and the IF of a candidate's publications, the second part (B) examined whether the IF may affect funding for research and the third part (C) examined the personal view of the anesthesiologist. Except for the questions regarding the advantages and disadvantages of the IF, which had, as is expected answers of descriptive nature, all the others could be answered by YES or NO.
Statistics
The positive answers (YES) for each individual question obtained from North American (Canada and USA) anesthesiologists were compared with those obtained from European anesthesiologists. Comparisons were made with 
2 with Yates correction or with Fisher's exact test wherever appropriate.
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Results |
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. The number of responses obtained from Austria (15), higher than the number of questionnaires sent out (12), may be explained by the fact that some anesthesiologists wished to express their opinion despite not having received a questionnaire.
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Personal views
Forty-five percent of Canadian, 67% of American and 56% of European anesthesiologists estimate that IF reflects quality of a journal. Fifty-nine and 67% of Canadian and American anesthesiologists respectively pursue to publish in high IF journals, compared to European anesthesiologists (81%; P=0.0175). Eighty-six, 85% and 90% of the Canadian, American and European anesthesiologists respectively believe that a journal may positively influence its IF (Figure). Finally, 79%, 67% and 81% of Canadian, American and European anesthesiologists believe that the IF should be improved, while 70%, 42%, and 59% believe that it should be replaced by another index, and 33%, 35%, and 30% believe that it should be abandoned (Figure).
Some of the advantages of the IF commonly reported by North American and European anesthesiologists were: the IF is objective (12%), allows comparisons (18%), represents an index of quality (27%), enhances competition (4%), is easy to calculate and easy to use (4%), is widely accepted (10%), and is better than nothing (4.5%). Some of the reported disadvantages were: the IF is biased (10%), is not a measure of quality (11%), lacks general recognition or general acceptance (0.5%), is self-perpetuating (7%), is subject to manipulation (7%), and favours English language journals (16%), specific scientific fields or specialties (24%).
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Discussion |
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It is important to realize that a journal's IF does not represent the citation rate of individual articles. On the opposite, it is the article citation rate that determines the journal's IF. A journal has a high IF because it publishes articles with a high citation rate.10 Therefore, it might be more appropriate for individuals and research groups to be assessed primarily by the number of citations of their articles rather than by the IF of the journals where their work is published.
Funding
The same applies to some degree to departmental funding. Though it is generally believed that the IF is used to direct financial support for research,11 our results show this may be true only to a limited extent in North America. The degree to which the IF will direct funding towards different scientific fields appears to be more important in Canada and in Europe than in the USA. Rapidly developing research fields will increase the IF and, most likely, receive more funding. Also, articles in basic science journals are frequently cited by clinical medicine journals but not vice versa. However, the inter-field IF differences can be normalized somewhat so that the differences are attenuated while the ranking of the different fields is maintained.
Personal views
We believe most anesthesiologists who answered the questionnaire were familiar with how the IF impacts appointments and funding. In their position as heads of departments, program directors etc, they had been interviewed in the past on several occasions and, most likely, had participated in committees appointing anesthesiologists in academic departments. As researchers, they were also familiar with criteria for making funding decisions.
The view that the IF reflects journal quality is similar and widely accepted among anesthesiologists in North America and Europe. However, Europeans are much more eager to publish in high IF journals. In general, anesthesiologists believe that the IF of a journal may be favoured by policies of the journal itself. The editor of the journal "Leukemia" has been accused of asking the authors submitting a manuscript to include more articles published in "Leukemia" in their reference list.3
It has been shown that a high self-citation rate may positively influence the IF of the leading anesthesia journals. An appropriate correction by eliminating self-citations has been proposed.2 However, although self-citations may affect the IF of some journals,2 they do not determine the IF of high impact journals.
The most frequently reported advantages of the IF are that it is an indication of quality and allows comparisons between journals. Its most frequently reported disadvantages are that the IF favours English language journals, and that it is specialty specific and highly influenced by the scientific discipline. Despite its disadvantages and flaws2–7,11 only a relatively low percentage of North American and European Anesthesiologists believes that it should be abandoned. On the contrary, the majority believes that IF should be "kept alive" but needs to be improved.
Responses to our survey do not agree with published articles on the subject, the great majority of which are strongly opposed to the IF. Despite all the published limitations of the IF, high impact journals and their editors continue to attract the best manuscripts.12 This is confirmed by the high percentage of North Americans and very high percentage of Europeans who answered that they seek to publish their work in high impact journals.
Our results suggest that the IF, although originating from the USA, is used more by Europeans despite its inherent limitations. Academic anesthesiologists believe that it should be improved upon or replaced by a better index. Until a "new and improved" index of quality of scientific journals becomes available, anesthesiologists should be well aware of the limitations of the IF, as we know it today.
Revision received March 4, 2001. Accepted for publication January 18, 2001.
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References |
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2
Fassoulaki A, Paraskeva A, Papilas K, Karabinis G. Self-citations in six anaesthesia journals and their significance in determining the impact factor. Br J Anaesth 2000; 84: 266–9.
3 Smith R. Journal accused of manipulating impact factor. BMJ 1997; 314: 463.
4
Smith G. Impact factors in anaesthesia journals (Editorial). Br J Anaesth 1996; 76: 753–4.
5 Hansson S. Impact factor as a misleading tool in evaluation of medical journal (Letter). Lancet 1995; 346: 906.
6
Seglen PO. Why the impact factor of journals should not be used for evaluating research. BMJ 1997; 314: 498–502.
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Smith R. Unscientific practice flourishes in science. Impact factor of journals should not be used in research assessment (Editorial). BMJ 1998; 316: 1036–40.
8 Brody S. Impact factor as the best operational measure of medical journals (Letter). Lancet 1995; 346: 1300–1.
9
Harder DR. Impact factors and the competitive nature of journal publishing (Editorial). Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol 2000; 279: H457.
10 Seglen PO. Causal relationship between article citedness and journal impact. J Am Soc Inform Sci 1994; 45: 1–11.
11 Gisvold S-E. Citation analysis and journal impact factors - is the tail wagging the dog? (Editorial). Acta Anaesthesiol Scand 1999; 43: 971–3.[Medline]
12
Garfield E. How can impact factors be improved? BMJ 1996; 313: 411–3.
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