Self-citations in six anaesthesia journals and their significance in determining the impact factor

Self-citation of a journal may affect its impact factor. We investigated se lf-citations in the 1995 and 1996 issues of six anaesthesia journals by cal culating the self-citing and self-cited rates for each journal. Self-citing rate relates a journal's self-citations to its total number of references. We defined self-cited rate as the ratio of a journal's self-citations to t he number of times it is cited by the six anaesthesia journals. We also cor related self-citing rates with the impact factor of the six journals for 19 97. Citations among the six journals differed significantly (P < 0.0001). A nesthesiology had the highest self-citing rate (57%). Anaesthesia, Anesthes ia and Analgesia, British Journal of Anaesthesia, Canadian Journal of Anaes thesia and the European Journal of Anaesthesiology had self-citing rates of 28%, 28%, 30%, 11% and 4% respectively. The self-cited rates were 31%, 35% , 34%, 27%, 31% and 17% for Anaesthesia, Anesthesiology, Anesthesia and Ana lgesia, British Journal of Anaesthesia, Canadian Journal of Anaesthesia and the European Journal of Anaesthesiology, respectively. North America journ als cited the North America literature. This also occurred, to a lesser ext ent, in the European anaesthesia journals. A significant correlation betwee n self-citing rates and impact factors was found (r = 0.899, P = 0.015). A high self-citing rate of a journal may positively affect its impact factor.