The incorporation of Neurocirugia to the Journal of Citation Reports:: Bibliometric analysis of the Spanish neurosurgical scientific production

Introduction and Objectives: The Journal of Citation Reports 1998(th) edition includes Neurocirugia for the first time within the analyzed publications. This implies the incorporation of our journal to the most selected group of international scientific publications and awards it with the desired impact factor. The aims of this paper are firstly to review the basic bibliometric concepts that govern the influence of publications and research groups on biomedical sciences; secondly to know the present status of the scientific production in neurosurgery and the situation of Spain in the world and European context, analyzing its national distribution and evolution during the last years and finally, to show the present status of Neurocirugia, considering some aspects in order to improve its indicators in the future. Material and methods: A review of the neurosurgical literature in 1998 was done as well as a follow-up of the national production between 1987-99. The articles were distributed according to the authors geographical origin, journals, area and type of investigation. Data were mainly obtained from MEDLINE. The main bibliometric variables analyzed were the total number of articles and the impact factor. The absolute data were weighted up with demographic and economic variables in order to know the relative potential of each country. Results: Three thousand and twenty one articles that were published in 314 journals were localized. Following the total number of articles and the cumulated impact factor, the main producing countries were the United States, Japan and Germany. Spain holds the ninth position by number of articles and the thirteenth one by impact factor. The gross domestic product has been the weighting variable that has demonstrated a stronger correlation with the scientific output generated by each country. By applying it, our country descends considerably. However, the Spanish production shows a favourable tendency during the last years, not only because of the total number of published articles, but also for the theoretical better quality of them. Conclusions: Despite of the achievements during the last years, the Spanish neurosurgery holds a lower position than the one it should according to our country economical potential. The challenge of the forthcoming years must be working in order to improve these indicators.