[Impact factor of the Revista Española de Anestesiología y Reanimación for 1997 and 1998].
OBJECTIVE
Revista Española de Anestesiología y Reanimación (REDAR) is not listed in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) of the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) and therefore REDAR's impact factor (IF) is unknown. This study aimed to calculate REDAR's IF and immediacy index for the years 1997 and 1998 as well as the IF that the journal would have had if it were considered an ISI source journal. The study also aimed to analyze self-citations and how they would affect the IF if REDAR were considered a source journal.


METHODS
We calculated the IF and immediacy indexes using ISI methodology, by manually counting the references to REDAR articles published in 1997 and 1998 and singling out self-citations.


RESULTS
The IF was 0.014 for 1997 and 0.054 for 1998. If REDAR had been considered a source journal in 1997 the IFs would have been 0.437 for 1997 and 0.419 for 1998. The immediacy indexes were 0.37 for 1997 and 0.30 for 1998. The mean number of references per article for the two-year period under study was 19.04 with differences depending mainly on type of article. The highest numbers of self-citations and the highest proportions of the same were found in letters to the editor and authors' replies. The 30 author-plus-journal self citations accounted for 9.3% of all self-citations (n = 322).


CONCLUSIONS
The IF of REDAR is far lower than those of other European journals. If REDAR were accepted as a source journal, it would benefit from its self-citations. Improving REDAR's if would result in greater international recognition of our scientific level.
Figueredo
E
E
Servicio-Anestesiología y Reanimación, Hospital Torrecárdenas, Almería. eduardofigueredo@hotmail.com
Villalonga
A
A
D000776:Anesthesiology; D015706:Bibliometrics; D005060:Europe; D016239:MEDLINE / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010506:Periodicals as Topic / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012151:Resuscitation; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012955:Societies, Medical / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D013030:Spain