A bibliometric analysis of the Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.

A bibliometric analysis based on the Journal Citation Reports distributed by the Institute of Scientific Information was made of the Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and related journals to determine the relative ranking of the Archives in several bibliometric categories. It was hoped that this process would yield objective evidence for the strengths and weaknesses of the Archives. Bibliometric indices that were compared included the impact factor (a reflection of how often a journal's articles are cited) and the cited half-life and immediacy (both of which deal with the timeliness of a journal's articles). The overall rankings of the Archives in 1988 compared to all journals indexed were 1,887 of 4,020 for impact factor, 2,633 of 2,683 for cited half-life and 1,793 of 4,020 for immediacy. In general, the Archives ranked higher in most of these indices than most rehabilitation journals but lower than other journals widely cited in the Archives, including general journals, other specialty journals, and a basic science journal.