Letter

Quality of impact factors of general medical journals

BMJ 2003; 326 doi: 10.1136/bmj.326.7383.283 (Published 1 February 2003)
Cite this as: BMJ 2003;326:283.1

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  1. K S Joseph (kjoseph@is.dal.ca), associate professor
  1. Perinatal Epidemiology Research Unit, Departments of Obstetrics and Gynecology and of Pediatrics, Dalhousie University, 5980 University Avenue, Halifax, NS, Canada B3H 4N1

    EDITOR—Citations are deemed the currency of science, and their utility in measuring the quality and impact of scientific articles and journals is generally accepted.1–3 Citation based impact factors and rankings of leading general medical journals have changed substantially in recent years, and this seems to have been associated—unexpectedly—with simultaneous changes in publication volume.4

    Numbers of substantive items published annually and impact factors for five leading journals in general and internal medicine, 1989-2001. Impact factors are number of citations in a given year to any article published in …

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