RESEARCH ACTIVITY OF GERMAN GASTROENTEROL OGISTS EVALUATED BY MEANS OF CITATION INDEXES

The objective judgement of the activity and research quality is a cent ral aim of the scientific community. Citation indices as valid and obj ective parameters have been already used in many disciplines for that purpose. The following paper describes and analyzes the citation indic es of all members of the German Society of Gastroenterology, who recei ved lectures degree (habilitation; equivalent to PhD). Methods: Citati on indices of 376 habilitated German gastroenterologists were determin ed for the year 1992. Using the individual citation indices of all per sons a ranking curve was calculated and compared with the ranking curv e of 1987 which was calculated in the same way. Furthermore, represent ative groups of habilitated gastroenterologists who were cited often ( > 30 citations/year), moderate or nil were evaluated concerning their citation indices during the time interval between the year of habilita tion and 1992. Results: About 40% of all tested gatroenterologists wer e not or only very rare (0-2 citations/year) cited in the world litera ture. Only 15% reached citation rates over 30/year. No relevant differ ences were found between the ranking curves of 1992 and 1987. Gas troe nterologists with high citation rates in 1992 had also high indices at the time of their habilitation; those with low or no citations in the year 1992, had also low citation rates at the time of their habilitat ion (p < 0.05). Conclusions: More than 1/3 of the habilitated German g astroenterologists are 1992 not seriously registered in the scientific world literature. Only a minority of gastroenterologists shows intern ational acceptable high citation rates. The determination of individua l citation indices together with the ranking curve of the whole group of gastroenterologists appears to be suitable to judge the research ac tivity of an individual gastroenterologist and may also serve as usefu l information about individual research potential in the future.