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Analysis of self‐citation and impact factor in dermatology journals
Author(s) -
Reiter Ofer,
Mimouni Michael,
Mimouni Daniel
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
international journal of dermatology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.677
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1365-4632
pISSN - 0011-9059
DOI - 10.1111/ijd.13193
Subject(s) - subspecialty , impact factor , medicine , citation , credibility , dermatology , family medicine , library science , computer science , political science , law
Background Concerns have been raised regarding the impact factor's ( IF ) accuracy and credibility, which may be affected by different factors, including self‐citations. Objective To investigate the self‐citation rate ( SCR ) of dermatology journals and its relationship to the IF . Methods Data on all dermatology journals listed in the Journal Citation Reports ( JCR ) were retrieved, and the following parameters were analyzed: IF , total publications used to calculate the IF , total citations used to calculate the IF , self‐citations used to calculate the IF , SCR , and IF without self‐citations (corrected IF ). Results The median SCR was 10.53% (0–50%), and the median IF and corrected IF , 1.54 (0.05–6.37) and 1.35 (0.03–5.84), respectively. There was an inverse correlation between the IF and the SCR . A statistically significant difference was noted in the SCR between general and subspecialty journals and between journals that offered a full English text and those that did not. Conclusions In general, the IF of dermatology journals is not influenced by the SCR . However, journals with a lower IF tend to have a higher SCR . Subspecialty journals and foreign language journals have a higher SCR than general dermatology and English language journals, respectively, probably owing to their limited distribution and the difficulty experienced by international authors in accessing references in specific languages.