[Evolutive characteristics of the scientific articles published in the "Arquivos Brasileiros de Oftalmologia" between 1986 and the year 2000].
OBJECTIVE
1) To verify the average number of the authors per article and its geographic origin; 2) To evaluate the language of publications; 3) To evaluate the bibliographical references with their number per article, type and most cited periodicals, besides the behavior of the growth of the references along the years.


METHODS
Systematic revision was done of 876 publications of Arquivos Brasileiros de Oftalmologia (ABO) in the period of January of 1986 to December of the year 2000. These scientific publications were separated in to three quinquennial groups.


RESULTS
The average number of authors per article was 3.73 +/- 1.7. According to the geographic origin, 83.6% of the publications came from the Southeastern region. Portuguese was the language of the majority of articles (94.7%). The number of references per article was 12.7 +/- 7.5, and a scientific periodical (81.8%) was the most reported document. American Journal of Ophthalmology, Archives of Ophthalmology and Ophthalmology were the most cited periodicals and their growth (R(2)=0.6075), as well as of the national ones (R(2)=0.7861) was increasing.


CONCLUSIONS
The average number of authors per article did not present significant variation and the geographical origin was mostly the Southeastern region. The Portuguese language was the most frequent. The mostly quoted document was the scientific periodical. The quotations of international publications as well as national presented a significant increase.
Ventura
Antonio Guilherme Gonsalves de Melo
AG
Centro Oftalmológico da Paraíba, Paraíba, Brasil. agventura@hotmail.com
Ventura
Aurélio José Gonsalves de Melo
AJ
Santos
Saulo André dos
SA
D001319:Authorship; D015706:Bibliometrics; D001938:Brazil; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D009885:Ophthalmology; D010506:Periodicals as Topic / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*