[Bibliometric study of the journal Actas Dermo-Sifiliográficas(1984-2003) II. Analysis of bibliographical references].

Objective: To quantify the number of references for each of the articles published in the regular issues of the journal Actas Dermo-Sifiliográficas (AD) between 1984 and 2003, and to calculate the average number of references for each of these years. To study the consumption of information by the authors of documents published in AD through the analysis of all of the bibliographical references listed in the articles published in 1984, 1993 and 2003.

Material And Methods: The number of references for each of the scientific articles published in the regular issues of the journal Actas Dermo-Sifiliográficas between 1984 and 2003 was reviewed manually. For the years 1984, 1993 and 2003, the type of document, language, country of origin and age of the references were analyzed.

Results: The 2,604 articles published in the journal AD between 1984 and 2003 provided 56,144 references. The average number of references per article for the entire period was 21.56 +/- 21.2. The type of document with the most references was the review (67.06 +/- 59.9), followed by original works (24.76 +/- 19) and clinical cases (17.95 +/- 9.7). The primary type of document for references in the three years studied was the review article, which went from 84.8 % in 1984 to 95.4 % in 2003. References to books, on the other hand, dropped from 10.6 % in the first year to 3.3 % in the last one (p < 0.001). The United States was the country of origin of a large part of the references reflected in the three years studied (55.4 %). Following at a great distance were the United Kingdom (15.7 %) and Spain (9 %). English was the language in which most of the references were written in the three years studied, increasing from 72.9 % in 1984 to 87.5 % in 2003. Spanish was the second most used language in the references (9.1 %); contrary to what was expected, its use decreased over the three years. The main journals referenced by the authors published in AD were the American publications Archives of Dermatology (12.3 %) and Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology (10.3 %). References to AD itself accounted for 4 % of the total; it was the fourth most referenced journal after the British Journal of Dermatology (7.4 %).

Conclusions: Spanish dermatologists primarily use English-language publications for their research. They mostly obtain current information from periodicals, with a significant percentage of the information being found in a small group of journals, which are the ones with the greatest international impact for our field of specialization.