[References in articles published in Revista Española de anestesiología y reanimación: 1999-2003].
OBJECTIVE
To determine the characteristics in citations of articles published in Revista Española de Anestesiología y Reanimación (REDAR).


METHODS
References cited in REDAR articles published from 1999 through 2003 were analyzed in terms of type of document, number of pages, language, country of publication, and visibility. Obsolescence was studied based on document age, Burton and Kebler's half-life index, and Price's index. Citation errors were also counted.


RESULTS
A total of 14271 citations in 692 articles published in the aforementioned years were studied. Journal articles were the type of document cited most often (n=13113; 91.9%). The average length of documents cited in REDAR articles was 7.29 pages. The language of the cited articles was English in 80.7% of the cases and the majority (51.8%) were published in the United States of America. Journals with impact factors were the sources cited 76% (n=10 833) of the time. The average age of cited works was 9.81 years, the half-life was 6 years, and Price's index was 38.8%. A total of 1610 errors were detected; 609 of them interfered with access to the document.


CONCLUSIONS
The bibliographic references in REDAR are similar to those of other Spanish medical journals and other anesthesiology journals.
Fernández Baena
M J
MJ
Servicio de Anestesiología, Reanimación y Terapia del Dolor, Complejo Hospitalario Carlos Haya, Málaga. auroragp@terra.es
D000776:Anesthesiology; D015706:Bibliometrics; D010506:Periodicals as Topic; D011643:Publishing / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D013030:Spain