Citation classics in nursing journals: the top 50 most frequently cited articles from 1956 to 2011.

Background: Assessing the impact of individual journal articles provides information for understanding trends in science and translation of findings on practice. Citation analysis is an important way to highlight the contributions of individual author/investigator and journals on nursing practice.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to identify the most frequently cited articles published in nursing journals from 1956 to 2011.

Citation classics: Top 50 cited articles in 'respiratory system'.

Identifying citation classics in the field is one of the key methodologies used to conduct a systematic evaluation of research performance. The objective of this study was to determine the most frequently cited articles published in journals that are placed under the 'respiratory system' subject category (Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) Journal Citation Reports) and to compare them with the most frequently cited respiratory-related articles published in any journal, regardless of subject category. The authors utilized the ISI Journal Citation Reports: Science Edition 2010 database in April 2012 to determine the most frequently cited articles by respiratory system subject category and by respiratory-related keywords.