Abstract
The practice of publishing clinical trials in scientific journals is common, although not without its critics. This study aims to measure the effect of clinical trials citations on several bibliometric indicators: citations per document (CD); journal impact factor (JIF); relative h-index (RhI) and strike rate index (SRI). We select all the citable documents published in the NEJM, Lancet, JAMA, AIM and BMJ, for the period 2000-2004, and record the citations received by those papers from 2000 to 2005. Our results show that clinical trials have a CD significantly higher than those for conventional papers; JIF is lower when clinical trials are excluded, especially for NEJM, Lancet and JAMA. Finally, both RhI and SRI seem to be unaffected by clinical trials citations.
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Romero, A.G., Cortés, J.N., Escudero, C. et al. Measuring the influence of clinical trials citations on several bibliometric indicators. Scientometrics 80, 747–760 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-008-2108-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-008-2108-6