Mapping the literature of diagnostic medical sonography.

Diagnostic medical sonography has been evolving as a recognized allied health occupation since the early 1970s, but no bibliometric studies of the literature of the field have been published. This study, part of the Medical Library Association Nursing and Allied Health Resources Section's Project for Mapping the Literature of Allied Health, attempted to identify the core journals in diagnostic medical sonography and determine how well these journals are indexed by MEDLINE, EMBASE/Excerpta Medica, and the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL). Citation analysis was done using the three journals listed for the field by the Brandon/Hill list. Characteristics of two of these three journals affected the results to the extent that more data should be gathered to reach conclusions about the literature of diagnostic medical sonography as a whole. Results of the analysis do suggest that the literature of echocardiography, which is a special area of diagnostic medical sonography, is indexed much more completely by MEDLINE and EMBASE/Excerpta Medica than by CINAHL. Suggestions are made for librarians making collection development decisions in this area of allied health.