A bibliometric analysis of Serbian Dental Journal: 2002-2009

Introduction. Serbian Dental Journal (SDJ) is a major source of formal communication for dentists in this region. The purpose of this bibliometric study was to examine articles published in SDJ in period 2002-2009, in reference to journal productivity and nature of authorships, citation patterns, most frequently cited scientific journals and the role of self-citations. Material and Methods. Bibliographic data, as well as metadata for all articles were taken from the Serbian national citation index SCIndeks. Bibliometric analysis of source articles included the number and type of article, author characteristics and cited literature. For each citation the following data was recorded: author(s), article title, journal title, monographic title, publication type, publication year and language. Results. In this period 193 articles were published and most of them were original research articles. In this period a total of 314 national and international authors cooperated, responsible for 538 authorships. The mean number of authors per article was 2.8. Most cited items in terms of publication type were journal articles (83.5 %), while the most frequently cited journals were just those most relevant in the field of dentistry. Results also indicate that the age of the cited literature is below the norm for medical literature. Conclusion. Obtained numerical indicators do not differ significantly when compared to other scientific and professional journals. However, it can be concluded that it is necessary to increase journal productivity and self-citation rate, as well as citation of current literature, up to five years old. This analysis allows evaluating patterns of scientific communication among dentists in this region, as well as journal's current management strategies in order to define useful future directions for the inclusion into the international system of scientific information exchange.