[Accuracy of references in eight nursing journals in Korea].
OBJECTIVE
This study was to investigate the reference accuracy in major nursing journals in Korea.


METHODS
The references in articles from eight nursing journals from 2006 were compared with PubMed for authors, year, title, journal, volume, and page accuracy. Four hundred sixty-six references were reviewed. Errors were classified as major or minor and categorized by bibliographic headings (author, title, journal, year, volume and page).


RESULTS
Of the 466 references, 223(47.9%) had citation errors. The reference error rates ranged from 28.6% to 58.7%. Most errors occurred in the author element (37.9%), followed by title (20.9%), journal (19.0%), page (13.9%), volume (5.9%), and year (2.4%).


CONCLUSIONS
This study identified a considerable error rate in the references of nursing journals. Inaccuracy of references is a reflection on scholarly work of authors and journals. Authors and Editorial committees are responsible for the accuracy of references.
Suk
Min-Hyun
MH
Department of Nursing, Pochon CHA University, Sungnam, Korea.
Jang
Hee-Jung
HJ
Park
Jeong Sook
JS
Kim
Hae-Won
HW
Suh
Yeon-Ok
YO
Shin
Hyun-Sook
HS
Yang
Jin-Hyang
JH
Jung
Myun-Sook
MS
Chung
Myung-Sill
MS
D001634:Bibliographies as Topic; D006801:Humans; D007723:Korea; D009729:Nursing; D017712:Peer Review, Research; D010506:Periodicals as Topic