Abstracts
Background:
Quotations in Brazilian journals are mainly obtained from national articles (articles from Brazilian journals); thus, it is essential to determine how frequently these articles reference Brazilian journals.
Objective:
This study sought to verify how frequently national papers are cited in the references of three Brazilian physical therapy journals.
Method:
All references for articles published in Fisioterapia em Movimento, Fisioterapia e Pesquisa and Revista Brasileira de Fisioterapia between 2010 and 2012 were evaluated. In particular, the numbers of national articles and international articles (articles from international journals) cited in these references were determined.
Results:
A total of 13,009 references cited by 456 articles were analyzed, and 2,924 (22.47%) of the cited works were national articles. There were no significant differences among the three examined years. A total of 36 (7.89%) articles did not cite national articles, whereas 65 (13.25%) articles cited more national articles than international articles.
Conclusion:
On average, 22.47% of the works cited by the evaluated articles were national articles. No significant differences were detected among the three analyzed years.
journal article; impact factor; bibliography
Contextualização:
A principal fonte das citações dos periódicos brasileiros provém de artigos nacionais, sendo fundamental conhecer o quanto eles referenciam artigos de periódicos brasileiros.
Objetivo:
Verificar a frequência com que artigos nacionais são citados nas referências de artigos de três periódicos brasileiros de fisioterapia.
Método:
Avaliaram-se todas as referências dos artigos publicados nos periódicos: Fisioterapia em Movimento, Fisioterapia e Pesquisa e Revista Brasileira de Fisioterapia nos anos de 2010 a 2012, verificando a quantidade de artigos provenientes de revistas nacionais e internacionais.
Resultados:
Foram analisadas 13.009 referências, dispostas em 456 artigos nas três revistas. Desse total, 2.924 (22,47%) foram de periódicos nacionais. Não houve diferença significativa entre os períodos analisados. Trinta e seis (7,89%) dos artigos não citaram artigo de periódico nacional, e 65 (14,25%) citaram mais artigos nacionais que estrangeiros.
Conclusão:
O valor médio da porcentagem de artigos nacionais citados nos artigos estudados foi de 22,47%. Não houve diferença entre os períodos estudados.
artigo de revista; fator de impacto; bibliografia
INTRODUCTION
In recent years, there has been extraordinary growth in the publication of research
articles, a phenomenon that can primarily be attributed to rapid expansion in the
training of new researchers11. Brasil. Ministério da Ciência e Tecnologia. Participação percentual
do número de artigos brasileiros publicados em periódicos científicos indexados pela
Thomson/ISI e Scopus em relação ao mundo, 1996-2011. Brasília: Ministério da Ciência
e Tecnologia, 2012 [cited 2012 Nov 28]. Available from:
http://www.mct.gov.br/index.php/content/view/5711.html.
Available from:
htt...
. Biomedical fields have directly contributed to this growth; in particular,
physical therapy has played an important role in the recent surge in research
publishing. For instance, the quantity of randomized clinical studies in physical
therapy increased from 1,950 in 1990 to 5,301 in 2010; moreover, in 2011, a total of
15,293 such clinical studies were ongoing22. Maher CG, Moseley AM, Sherrington C, Elkins MR, Herbert RD. A
description of the trials, reviews, and practice guidelines indexed in the PEDro
database. Phys Ther. 2008;88(9):1068-77.
http://dx.doi.org/10.2522/ptj.20080002
http://dx.doi.org/10.2522/ptj.20080002...
,
33. Costa LOP, Maher CG, Lopes AD, Noronha MA, Costa LCM. Transparent
reporting of studies relevant to physical therapy practice. Rev Bras Fisioter.
2011;15(4):267-71. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1413-35552011005000009
http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1413-35552011...
.
The growth of research in physical therapy is of paramount importance because this
research not only enhances knowledge and enables the standardization of procedures but
also confirms or refutes experiences that occur in professional practice44. Sturmer G, Viero CCM, Silveira MN, Lukrafka JL, Plentz RDM. Profile
and scientific output analysis of physical therapy researchers with research
productivity fellowship from the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and
Technological Development. Braz J Phys Ther. 2013;17(1):41-8. PMid:23538457.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1413-35552012005000068
http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1413-35552012...
; ultimately, this research contributes to improving patients' quality of
life.
The evaluation of scientific journals is based on impact factor, which is calculated using the relationship between the total number of citations of a journal over the course of a two-year period and the quantity of articles published in the journal in question during the same period. Notably, this metric does not directly evaluate the published articles but only assesses the number of articles published in a journal during a given time interval55. Botelho NM, Teixeira RKC, Yamaki VN. Valorize a pesquisa brasileira: cite os periódicos científicos nacionais. Rev Para Med. 2012;26(3):5-6..
Article citation can be biased due to several factors, including not only an article's
title, research affiliations and scientific field but also the research group or
specific researchers associated with an article66. Paiva CE, Lima JPSN, Paiva BSR. Articles with short titles describing
the results are cited more often. Clinics. 2012;67(5):509-13.
http://dx.doi.org/10.6061/clinics/2012(05)17
http://dx.doi.org/10.6061/clinics/2012(0...
,
77. Moed HF. Measuring contextual citation impact of scientific journals.
J Informetr. 2010;4(3):265-77.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2010.01.002
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2010.01....
. The citation of an article can also be affected by factors that are not
directly related to the article itself, such as the database in which an article is
indexed and the language in which an article is published. For instance, an article that
is not published in English cannot readily be perused by the entire scientific
community; instead, access to this article is restricted to researchers fluent in the
language in which the article is published.
Brazil is the primary Latin American country in which physical therapy articles are
published88. Marques AP. Pós-graduação e produção de conhecimentos em Fisioterapia
na América Latina: qual é o papel do Brasil? Fisioter Pesqui. 2012;19(3):195.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1809-29502012000300001
http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1809-29502012...
. The current growth in publishing in this field can be partially attributed to
the expansion of stricto sensu
99. Demo P. Qualidade e pesquisa na universidade. RBDEPA.
2009;1(1):52-64. graduate programs offered by public universities, which has resulted in a
ninefold increase in PhD graduates in physical therapy over the course of the prior 10
years1010. Coury HJCG, Vilella I. Profile of the Brazilian physical therapy
researcher. Rev Bras Fisioter. 2009;13(4):356-63.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1413-35552009005000048
http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1413-35552009...
. However, this growth in the quantity and quality of publishing in the field of
physical therapy has not been reflected by improvement in Brazilian journals1111. Krzyzanowski RF, Ferreira MCG. Avaliação de periódicos científicos e
técnicos brasileiros. Cienc Inf. 1998;27(2):165-75.. In fact, only three out of ten Brazilian physical therapy journals are indexed
in SciELO (Scientific Electronic Library Online), and only one of these journals
possesses an impact factor1212. Thomson Reuters. ISI Web of Knowledge Web site. 2011 [cited 2012 Nov
29]. Available from: http://wokinfo.com/.
Available from:
htt...
,
1313. SciELO. Lista de periódicos indexados. 2012 [cited 2012 Nov 28].
Available from: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?lng=pt.
Available
from: htt...
.
Although it has been established that the quality of Brazilian journals is rising,
various factors continue to limit increases in the number of citations of these
journals. For instance, publications in these journals are predominantly in Portuguese;
international articles (articles published in international journals) are of higher
quality than publications in these journals; and "brain drain" has led to the
publication of leading Brazilian research in foreign journals1414. Cavalcante RA, Barbosa DR, Bonan PRF, Pires MBO, Martelli-Júnior H.
Perfil dos pesquisadores da área de odontologia no Conselho Nacional de
Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq). Rev Bras Epidemiol.
2008;11(1):106-13. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1415-790X2008000100010
http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1415-790X2008...
. These factors have restricted access to and citation of Brazilian journals1515. Pinto AC, Andrade JB. Fator de impacto de revistas científicas: qual
o significado deste parâmetro? Química Nova. 1999;22(3):448-53.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0100-40421999000300026
http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0100-40421999...
.
Therefore, the objective of this study is to assess how frequently national papers (papers published in Brazilian journals) are cited by evaluating the references of articles published in three Brazilian physical therapy journals.
METHOD
The references of articles published in three Brazilian physical therapy journals (Fisioterapia em Movimento, Fisioterapia e Pesquisa and Revista Brasileira de Fisioterapia) were analyzed. All articles published from 2010 to 2012 were examined, although only articles describing "original research" were evaluated in this study.
The analyses of this study did not consider articles classified as editorials,
literature reviews or case studies; articles without references; or letters to the
editor. Literature reviews were excluded because they reference articles with a high
impact factor, which are primarily international articles. Therefore, the consideration
of literature reviews would bias the selection. Articles that satisfied or violated the
inclusion criteria were analyzed based on the references of national articles1616. Teixeira RKC, Silveira TS, Botelho NM, Petroianu A. Citação de
artigos nacionais: a (des)valorização dos periódicos brasileiros. Rev Col Bras Cir.
2012;39(5):421-4. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0100-69912012000500015
http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0100-69912012...
.
In the search protocol of this study, all examined references were evaluated, disregarding references to books or websites and secondhand (apud) references. The numbers of references to national articles and to international articles as well as the ratio between references to national articles and references to international articles were determined. For each article, this analysis was performed by one author and subsequently confirmed by another author. In cases in which the two authors' analyses disagreed, the origins of referenced articles were verified using journals' websites.
For each examined journal, the number of self-citations (references to national articles in the journal in question) was analyzed. The total numbers of citations for all three journals and the ways in which the origins of these citations related to not only the examined journals but also national journals as a whole were also examined. These data were obtained from SciELO for each journal.
The distribution of study data was verified using the Shapiro-Wilk test, which indicated that these data were symmetrically distributed. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to compare the effects of intra- and inter-group factors on the ratio between the quantity of national articles cited and the quantity of international articles cited. The null hypothesis was rejected at p<0.05. All data obtained in this study were analyzed using the BioEstat(r) 5.3 software program.
RESULTS
A total of 13,099 references cited in 456 articles from the three examined journals were analyzed. Thus, on average, 28.52±8.43 references were assessed per article. Table 1 presents the average quantity of references per article for each examined year. In particular, this table indicates that in 2012, 2011, and 2010, there were 29.86±9.08, 28.05±8.42 and 27.76±7.67 citations per article, respectively. Among all of the examined references, 2,924 (22.47%) references cited national (Brazilian) articles; this value corresponded to an average of 6.41±5.61 citations of national articles in each examined article.
Total articles and references analyzed and proportion of articles cited in the three national magazines according to years studied.
Table 2 indicates data obtained for the three examined Brazilian physical therapy journals. For these journals, no significant differences among the three analyzed years were found with respect to the citation of national journals.
Total articles and references analyzed and proportion of articles cited in the three national magazines according to the years studied.
However, a significant difference among the three journals was found with respect to the quantity of citations of national articles. In particular, relative to Revista Brasileira de Fisioterapia, Fisioterapia em Movimento (p<0.001) and Fisioterapia e Pesquisa (p<0.001) cited national articles at significantly higher rates. These p-values reveal that articles in Revista Brasileira de Fisioterapia cite national articles less frequently than articles in the other two examined journals.
Among all of the examined articles, 36 (7.89%) articles did not refer to any national articles, 65 (14.25%) articles cited more national articles than international articles, and two articles (0.4%) only cited national articles. No significant differences among the examined journals (p=0.96) or the analyzed publication years (p=0.75) were observed. Table 3 indicates the distribution of citations recorded in the SciELO database.
DISCUSSION
The production of scientific knowledge in Brazil is greatly increasing, with
unprecedented levels of research with respect to both quality and quantity. However,
this increase has not been appropriately reflected by publications in national
journals1111. Krzyzanowski RF, Ferreira MCG. Avaliação de periódicos científicos e
técnicos brasileiros. Cienc Inf. 1998;27(2):165-75.
,
1717. Moser ADL. Editorial. Fisioter Mov.
2010;23(3):347-8.
,
1818. Sampaio RF, Salvini TF. Challenges for the advance of physical and
occupational therapy research. Rev Bras Fisioter. 2011;15(5):4-5.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1413-35552011000500001
http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1413-35552011...
.
On average, 22.47% of the references cited by the evaluated articles were national (Brazilian) articles. A literature review discovered no other studies that investigated the frequency with which national articles were cited in the field of physical therapy. Therefore, it was impossible to determine whether the average percentage of citations involving national articles has increased by comparing the 22.47% value obtained in this study with the findings of previous studies.
However, the obtained average may be compared with the results presented by Teixeira et
al.1616. Teixeira RKC, Silveira TS, Botelho NM, Petroianu A. Citação de
artigos nacionais: a (des)valorização dos periódicos brasileiros. Rev Col Bras Cir.
2012;39(5):421-4. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0100-69912012000500015
http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0100-69912012...
, who examined three surgery-related Brazilian journals and determined that on
average, 11.65% of the articles cited by papers in these journals were national
articles. Thus, it can be inferred that the authors of Brazilian physical therapy
articles cite national articles more frequently than Brazilian surgeons1919. Guimarães JA. A pesquisa médica e biomédica no Brasil. Comparações
com o desempenho científico brasileiro e mundial. Ciênc Saúde Coletiva.
2004;9(2):303-27. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1413-81232004000200009
http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1413-81232004...
. This difference may be attributed to the fact that more international journals
are available in surgery than in physical therapy; as a result, the probability of
citing international articles rather than national articles is greater in the former
field than in the latter field.
Several factors restrict the citation of Brazilian articles in international journals.
First, numerous Brazilian researchers publish only in Portuguese; as a result, their
articles cannot be read and cited by researchers in many other nations. Moreover,
several articles can only be accessed through local platforms, such as Lilacs2020. Lira RPC, Vieira RMC, Gonçalves FA, Ferreira MCA, Maziero D, Passos
THM, et al. Influence of English language in the number of citations of articles
published in Brazilian journals of Ophthalmology. Arq Bras Oftalmol. 2013;76(1):26-8.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0004-27492013000100008
http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0004-27492013...
,
2121. Van Leeuwen TN, Moed HF, Tijssen RJW, Visser MS, Van Raan AFJ.
Language biases in the coverage of the Science Citation Index and its consequences
for international comparisons of national research performance. Scientometrics.
2001;51(1):335-46. http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1010549719484
http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:101054971948...
; this limitation constitutes another obstacle that restricts access to these
articles. Among the examined journals, only Revista Brasileira de Fisioterapia publishes
all of its articles in English; unsurprisingly, this publication is also the only
journal with an impact factor1313. SciELO. Lista de periódicos indexados. 2012 [cited 2012 Nov 28].
Available from: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?lng=pt.
Available
from: htt...
,
1414. Cavalcante RA, Barbosa DR, Bonan PRF, Pires MBO, Martelli-Júnior H.
Perfil dos pesquisadores da área de odontologia no Conselho Nacional de
Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq). Rev Bras Epidemiol.
2008;11(1):106-13. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1415-790X2008000100010
http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1415-790X2008...
.
Another factor that limits the citation of national articles is research quality. Many
contributions to Brazilian journals involve the use of small samples to describe local
phenomena; therefore, no extrapolation from the results of these studies is possible.
Large national studies, such as multicenter clinical trials, are typically published in
international journals, resulting in a "brain drain" in which the highest-quality
national articles typically contribute to the impact of international journals rather
than Brazilian journals2222. Coura JR, Willcox LC. Impact factor, scientific production and
quality of Brazilian medical journals. Mem Inst Oswaldo Cruz. 2003;98(3):293-7.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0074-02762003000300001
http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0074-02762003...
23. Lustosa LA, Chalco MEP, Borba CM, Higa AE, Almeida RMR. Citation
distribution profile in Brazilian journals of general medicine. São Paulo Med J.
2012;130(5):314-7. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1516-31802012000500008
http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1516-31802012...
-
2424. Petroianu A. Perversidade contra a publicação médica no Brasil. Rev
Col Bras Cir. 2011;38(5):290-1.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0100-69912011000500001
http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0100-69912011...
.
It is necessary to perform more studies to determine whether a Brazilian researcher cites national articles in similar ways in articles published in national and international journals. These studies would enable the investigation of correlations involving impact factor, allowing researchers to discover whether a relationship exists between the quality of a journal and the quantity of national articles cited by publications in the journal in question.
CONCLUSIONS
On average, 22.47% of the references cited by the evaluated articles were national (Brazilian) articles. No significant differences among the analyzed years or the examined journals were detected.
REFERÊNCIAS
-
1Brasil. Ministério da Ciência e Tecnologia. Participação percentual do número de artigos brasileiros publicados em periódicos científicos indexados pela Thomson/ISI e Scopus em relação ao mundo, 1996-2011. Brasília: Ministério da Ciência e Tecnologia, 2012 [cited 2012 Nov 28]. Available from: http://www.mct.gov.br/index.php/content/view/5711.html.
» Available from: http://www.mct.gov.br/index.php/content/view/5711.html -
2Maher CG, Moseley AM, Sherrington C, Elkins MR, Herbert RD. A description of the trials, reviews, and practice guidelines indexed in the PEDro database. Phys Ther. 2008;88(9):1068-77. http://dx.doi.org/10.2522/ptj.20080002
» http://dx.doi.org/10.2522/ptj.20080002 -
3Costa LOP, Maher CG, Lopes AD, Noronha MA, Costa LCM. Transparent reporting of studies relevant to physical therapy practice. Rev Bras Fisioter. 2011;15(4):267-71. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1413-35552011005000009
» http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1413-35552011005000009 -
4Sturmer G, Viero CCM, Silveira MN, Lukrafka JL, Plentz RDM. Profile and scientific output analysis of physical therapy researchers with research productivity fellowship from the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development. Braz J Phys Ther. 2013;17(1):41-8. PMid:23538457. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1413-35552012005000068
» http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1413-35552012005000068 -
5Botelho NM, Teixeira RKC, Yamaki VN. Valorize a pesquisa brasileira: cite os periódicos científicos nacionais. Rev Para Med. 2012;26(3):5-6.
-
6Paiva CE, Lima JPSN, Paiva BSR. Articles with short titles describing the results are cited more often. Clinics. 2012;67(5):509-13. http://dx.doi.org/10.6061/clinics/2012(05)17
» http://dx.doi.org/10.6061/clinics/2012(05)17 -
7Moed HF. Measuring contextual citation impact of scientific journals. J Informetr. 2010;4(3):265-77. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2010.01.002
» http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2010.01.002 -
8Marques AP. Pós-graduação e produção de conhecimentos em Fisioterapia na América Latina: qual é o papel do Brasil? Fisioter Pesqui. 2012;19(3):195. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1809-29502012000300001
» http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1809-29502012000300001 -
9Demo P. Qualidade e pesquisa na universidade. RBDEPA. 2009;1(1):52-64.
-
10Coury HJCG, Vilella I. Profile of the Brazilian physical therapy researcher. Rev Bras Fisioter. 2009;13(4):356-63. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1413-35552009005000048
» http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1413-35552009005000048 -
11Krzyzanowski RF, Ferreira MCG. Avaliação de periódicos científicos e técnicos brasileiros. Cienc Inf. 1998;27(2):165-75.
-
12Thomson Reuters. ISI Web of Knowledge Web site. 2011 [cited 2012 Nov 29]. Available from: http://wokinfo.com/.
» Available from: http://wokinfo.com/ -
13SciELO. Lista de periódicos indexados. 2012 [cited 2012 Nov 28]. Available from: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?lng=pt.
» Available from: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?lng=pt -
14Cavalcante RA, Barbosa DR, Bonan PRF, Pires MBO, Martelli-Júnior H. Perfil dos pesquisadores da área de odontologia no Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq). Rev Bras Epidemiol. 2008;11(1):106-13. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1415-790X2008000100010
» http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1415-790X2008000100010 -
15Pinto AC, Andrade JB. Fator de impacto de revistas científicas: qual o significado deste parâmetro? Química Nova. 1999;22(3):448-53. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0100-40421999000300026
» http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0100-40421999000300026 -
16Teixeira RKC, Silveira TS, Botelho NM, Petroianu A. Citação de artigos nacionais: a (des)valorização dos periódicos brasileiros. Rev Col Bras Cir. 2012;39(5):421-4. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0100-69912012000500015
» http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0100-69912012000500015 -
17Moser ADL. Editorial. Fisioter Mov. 2010;23(3):347-8.
-
18Sampaio RF, Salvini TF. Challenges for the advance of physical and occupational therapy research. Rev Bras Fisioter. 2011;15(5):4-5. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1413-35552011000500001
» http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1413-35552011000500001 -
19Guimarães JA. A pesquisa médica e biomédica no Brasil. Comparações com o desempenho científico brasileiro e mundial. Ciênc Saúde Coletiva. 2004;9(2):303-27. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1413-81232004000200009
» http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1413-81232004000200009 -
20Lira RPC, Vieira RMC, Gonçalves FA, Ferreira MCA, Maziero D, Passos THM, et al. Influence of English language in the number of citations of articles published in Brazilian journals of Ophthalmology. Arq Bras Oftalmol. 2013;76(1):26-8. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0004-27492013000100008
» http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0004-27492013000100008 -
21Van Leeuwen TN, Moed HF, Tijssen RJW, Visser MS, Van Raan AFJ. Language biases in the coverage of the Science Citation Index and its consequences for international comparisons of national research performance. Scientometrics. 2001;51(1):335-46. http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1010549719484
» http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1010549719484 -
22Coura JR, Willcox LC. Impact factor, scientific production and quality of Brazilian medical journals. Mem Inst Oswaldo Cruz. 2003;98(3):293-7. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0074-02762003000300001
» http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0074-02762003000300001 -
23Lustosa LA, Chalco MEP, Borba CM, Higa AE, Almeida RMR. Citation distribution profile in Brazilian journals of general medicine. São Paulo Med J. 2012;130(5):314-7. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1516-31802012000500008
» http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1516-31802012000500008 -
24Petroianu A. Perversidade contra a publicação médica no Brasil. Rev Col Bras Cir. 2011;38(5):290-1. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0100-69912011000500001
» http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0100-69912011000500001
Publication Dates
-
Publication in this collection
Jan-Feb 2014
History
-
Received
06 Feb 2013 -
Reviewed
04 Aug 2013 -
Accepted
13 Sept 2013