Relações entre qualis capes, politicas editoriais e desempenho de citação em periódicos de ciência da saúde - exploração documental e cientométrica.

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The scientific communication ecosystem is based on three fundamental premises: (1) journals publish correct knowledge; (2) peer review recognizes and/or produces correct knowledge and (3) citation performance rewards correct knowledge. These assumptions, however, have not been sufficiently tested. OBJECTIVES: To understand the relationships between editorial policies of scientific journals in the health sciences and their citation performance, testing the hypothesis that policies that promote scientific integrity predict expressive citation performance. METHODS: This is a documental, exploratory, quantitative, applied study, which employed public data. A random stratified sample of 10% of scientific journals of Medicine II from QUALIS CAPES 2017-2020 was extracted, pairing unique International Standard Serial Numbers of journals until a number of journals from strata A1, A2, B1, B2 and B3 was obtained, respecting the 10% sample (n = 411 journals). These journals had their editorial policies described within three categories: (1) editorial policies aiming to promote scientific integrity; (2) editorial policies related to the way content was made available and amplified; (3) editorial policies that communicated prestige. Citation performance indicators were retrieved using the journal's ISSN through the OpenAlex application programming interface in the free software Harzing's Publish or Perish, version 8.8.4384.8527 (2023.05.06.1538). The H, AW and E Indices of each unique ISSN were retrieved. The extracted citation performance covered the period of publication ranging from 2012 to 2022. A multivariate linear regression was performed between editorial policies and citation performance of journals. For all analyses, a p value <0.05 was considered. RESULTS: Among the policies that promote scientific integrity, adherence to the EQUATOR Initiative guidelines, incentives to registered reports and pre-registration of reviews at the Prospero platform did not prove to be predictors of citation increment. Among the predictors, the largest increases in citation were for the MEDLINE and SCOPUS indexes, but with wide confidence intervals. It was observed that indexed journals are not fully complying with the criteria for entry and permanence in the respective collections. The most accurate confidence intervals in the multivariate analysis occurred for policies of: authorship according to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, data sharing, pre-registration of clinical trials, retractions, open access and pre-prints. CONCLUSION: Pro-integrity policies accurately predicted citations but generated a small increase in the distribution of received citations. Indexing, which is a characteristic associated with prestige, in turn, predicted an increase in citations in greater volume, but with less precision and without a high prevalence of integrity policies requested by the respective indexers. So, being in the indexer alone predicted a significant increase in citation distribution. In other words, prestige predicted citation in greater volume and with less accuracy. Integrity predicted citation in smaller volume and with more accuracy.