Hypothetical influence of non-indexed Spanish medical journals on the impact factor of the Journal Citation Reports-indexed journals

The purpose of this study is to analyze the hypothetical changes in the 2002 impact factor (IF) of the biomedical journals included in the Science Citation Index-Journal Citation Reports (SCI-JCR) by also taking into account cites coming from 83 non-indexed Spanish journals on different medical specialties. A further goal of the study is to identify the subject categories of the SCI-JCR with the largest increase in their IF, and to estimate the 2002 hypothetical impact factor (2002 HIF) of these 83 non-indexed Spanish journals. It is demonstrated that the inclusion of cites from a selection of non SCI-JCR-indexed Spanish medical journals in the SCI-JCR-indexed journals produces a slight increase in their 2002 IF, specially in journals edited in the USA and in the UK. More than half of the non-indexed Spanish journals has a higher 2002 HIF than that of the SCI-JCR-indexed journal with the lowest IF in the same subject category.