Journal impact factors for predicting future citation rate of an article in medical journals: A retrospective cohort study into a medical school article collection

Abstract

© JOURNAL OF THE MEDICAL ASSOCIATION OF THAILAND | 2019. Objective: To examine the correlation between The Journal Impact Factors (JIFs), Journal Impact Factor Quartiles (JIFQs), and future citation frequency in the three years following publications of a medical school article collection. Materials and Methods: The present sample was the collection of articles published by the academics of Chiang Mai University Faculty of Medicine in 2014. The authors searched the Scopus to collect the citation frequencies of each article between 2014 and 2017. The authors constructed two regression models to determine whether JIFs and JIFQs of the journals publishing articles could predict citation frequencies during the three years after publication. Results: The present study included 336 scientific articles. The Spearman’s rank correlation tests revealed that citation frequencies showed a significant correlation with JIFs (rho=0.572, p<0.001) and JIFQs (rho=–0.505, p<0.001). Two ordinal logistic regression analyses revealed that JIFs and JIFQs were significant predictors of citation frequency (β=0.734, p<0.001 and β=–0.696, p<0.001, respectively). Conclusion: For a medical institution, there appears to be a correlation between JIFs, and JIFQs, and future citation of the articles published by its academics. Further studies in this area are warranted.