title: Online-to-print Lags and Baseline Number of Citations in 5 Science Citation Index Journals Related to Liver Diseases (2013-2014).
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To analyze the length of online-to-print lags in 5 science citation index (SCI) journals related to liver diseases and their effect on the number of citations at the date of print publication.
  
  
  METHODS
  All original papers that were published between April 2013 and April 2014 in 5 SCI journals of liver diseases were systematically collected. The length of the online-to-print lag was defined as the difference between the date of print publication and the date of online publication. The number of citations for an article was obtained on its print publication date (baseline number of citations) and every month thereafter. According to the 2012 journal impact factor (JIF), the journals were divided into high-JIF (JIF ≥5) and low-JIF (JIF <5).
  
  
  RESULTS
  During the collection period, a total of 1039 original articles were published in the 5 journals. The low-JIF journals had significantly longer online-to-print lags than the high-JIF journals (6.23 ± 2.9 months versus 4.3 ± 1.5 months, P < 0.001). The low-JIF journals had a significantly larger proportion of original articles with a baseline number of citations ≥1 than the high-JIF journals (41.9% versus 32.3%, P = 0.002). A longer online-to-print lag was positively associated with a baseline number of citations ≥1 in all 5 journals.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Online-to-print lags are frequently observed in 5 SCI journals related to liver diseases. In contrast to the hypothesis that JIF was positively associated with the length of online-to-print lags, our study demonstrated that the low-JIF journals had significantly longer online-to-print lags than the high-JIF journals.
authors.affiliation: Department of Gastroenterology, General Hospital of Shenyang Military Area, No. 83 Wenhua Road, Shenyang, 110840, China ; Xijing Hospital of Digestive Diseases, Fourth Military Medical University, No. 127 Changle West Road, Xi'an, 710032, China.
authors.forename: Xingshun
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Qi
authors.affiliation: Department of Gastroenterology, General Hospital of Shenyang Military Area, No. 83 Wenhua Road, Shenyang, 110840, China.
authors.forename: Hongyu
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Gastroenterology, General Hospital of Shenyang Military Area, No. 83 Wenhua Road, Shenyang, 110840, China.
authors.forename: Xu
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Gastroenterology, General Hospital of Shenyang Military Area, No. 83 Wenhua Road, Shenyang, 110840, China.
authors.forename: Wenda
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: Xijing Hospital of Digestive Diseases, Fourth Military Medical University, No. 127 Changle West Road, Xi'an, 710032, China.
authors.forename: Ming
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bai
authors.affiliation: Department of Gastroenterology, General Hospital of Shenyang Military Area, No. 83 Wenhua Road, Shenyang, 110840, China.
authors.forename: Xiaozhong
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Guo
keywords: CI, confidence interval; HR, hazard ratio; JIF, journal impact factor; OR, odds ratio; SCI, science citation index; citation; impact factor; liver disease; online publication; print publication