Percepciones de expertos sobre características y habilidades que deben considerarse en la revisión de manuscritos / Experts perceptions on characteristics and skills that must be taken into account in the review of manuscripts

Introducción: El experto es figura clave en la evaluación de manuscritos científicos. Objetivo: Valorar las percepciones de expertos de revistas biomédicas cubanas en relación con características y habilidades que deben considerarse en la revisión de manuscritos. Métodos: Investigación descriptiva (septiembre 2013-diciembre 2014) realizada como parte del proyecto de culminación del curso para editores impartido por la Editorial Ciencias Médicas. El grupo analizado estuvo constituido por 57 árbitros. Para su selección se tuvo en cuenta el criterio del director de la revista. La recogida de información se realizó a través de un cuestionario que exploró variables sociodemográficas y relacionadas con el proceso de evaluación. Los datos se ingresaron en una base de datos creada al efecto con el programa SPSS versión 15.0 en español. Resultados: Las características identificadas con mayor porcentaje de respuestas e importancia indispensable fueron: actitud ética y responsable: 45 árbitros (82 por ciento) y actualizado en el tema a evaluar 42 expertos (76 por ciento). Las habilidades, con iguales condiciones fueron, detectar errores graves de forma y contenido: 42 expertos (76 por ciento) y ser éticos en sus críticas 38 expertos (69 por ciento). Otras particularidades profesionales, como ser objetivos en el dictamen y detectar errores metodológicos que afectan la calidad del texto, respectivamente, alcanzaron porcentajes menores. Conclusiones: Los expertos reconocen aspectos fundamentales para la evaluación de los manuscritos, lo que podría influir en el resultado positivo de su labor siempre que lo asuman y apliquen en su práctica, con énfasis en aquellas características profesionales que tuvieron menores porcentajes de reconocimiento(AU)

Introduction: Experts are a key factor in the assessment of scientific manuscripts. Objective: To assess the perception of Cuban biomedical journal's experts in relation with the characteristics and skills that must be taken into account in the review of manuscripts. Methods: Descriptive research (September 2013-December 2014) carried out as part of the final project in the Course for Editors given by the Medical Sciences Publishing House (Editorial de Ciencias Médicas). The assessed group was formed by 57 referees. It was taken into account the opinion of the journal´s directors for their selection. Data collection was carried out by a questionnaire that explored socio-demographic variables related with the assessment process. Data were submitted in a database created with SPSS program, version 15.0 in Spanish. Results: The characteristics identified with a higher percentage of answers and essential importance were: ethical and responsible attitude: 45 referees (82 percent); and there were updated in the assessed topic 42 experts (76 percent). The skills with the same conditions were: to detect serious mistakes of form and content: 42 experts (76 percent) and to be ethical in their critics: 38 experts (69 percent). Other professional particularities as being objective in the report and to detect methodological mistakes that affect the quality of the text had lower percentages. Conclusions: Experts can recognize essential aspects for the assessment of manuscripts, which can influence in the positive result of their work as far as they assume it and use it practically emphasizing in those professional characteristics that had lower percentages of acknowledgement(AU)

Las revistas científicas biomédicas en Ecuador: datos y reflexiones sobre el pasado, presente y futuro de las publicaciones periódicas / Biomedical scientific journals in Ecuador: data and reflections on the past, present and future of newspaper publication

Contexto: la investigación biomédica o médica termina también en una publicación escrita, que representa la base de futuras investigaciones o el eslabón de una cadena de producción de conocimientos. Objetivo: realizar un análisis histórico, cronológico de las revistas biomédicas en el Ecuador y su evolución hasta nuestros días, así como identificar las fortalezas y debilidades de las revistas actuales que se encuentran activas. Discusión y resultados: se analiza el tipo de revistas publicadas en el Ecuador a lo largo de 134 años, y se divide el análisis en tres etapas: pasada o era del papel, presente o digital y futura o era electrónica. Conclusión: entre el año 1.883 al 2.017 se han publicado 118 revistas biomédicas. De ellas, a febrero del 2018, tan sólo 23 revistas se encuentran vigentes y activas, considerando que tienen publicado al menos un número de la revista en formato digital en el año 2016 y/o 2017 y cuyo website está disponible al momento. En formato OJS existen apenas 10 revistas y apenas 29 revistas se encuentran indexadas en al menos una base de datos regional (LILACS, Latindex o IMBIOMED). Ninguna revista biomédica está en la base de datos Scielo Ecuador y tan sólo una revista consta en la base de datos Scopus. (AU)

Context: biomedical or medical research ends in a written publication, which represents the basis for future research, or the link in a chain of knowledge production. Objective: to carry out a historical, chronological analysis of the biomedical journals in Ecuador, and their evolution to the present day, as well as to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the current journals that are active. Discussion and results: the type of journals published in Ecuador is analyzed over 134 years, and the analysis is divided into three stages: past or era of paper, present or digital, and future or electronic era. Conclusion: between the year 1883 and 2016, 118 biomedical journals have been published. Of these, as of February 2018, only 23 journals are current and active, considering that they have published at least one issue of the journal in digital format in 2016 and / or 2017, and whose website is available at the moment. In OJS format there are only 10 journals, and only 29 journals are indexed in at least one regional database, LILACS, Latindex or IMBIOMED. No biomedical journal is in the Scielo Ecuador database, and only one journal is included in the Scopus database. (AU)

Declaraciones de conflictos de interés en las publicaciones biomédicas: estudio de cuatro revistas clínicas españolas / Conflicts of interest disclosure in biomedical publications: study of four Spanish clinical journals / Declarações de conflitos de interesse em publicações biomédicas: estudo de quatro revistas clínicas espanholas

La declaración de las relaciones financieras y personales de los investigadores con las compañías farmacéuticas es percibida como un paso esencial en la gestión de los potenciales conflictos de interés. El objetivo del estudio fue evaluar las declaraciones de conflictos de interés en cuatro revistas biomédicas españolas publicadas en castellano: Atención Primaria, Medicina Clínica, Revista Clínica Española y Revista Española de Cardiología. Se analizaron las publicaciones de 2012 calificadas por las revistas como "Editorial", "Artículo original", "Documento de consenso", "Revisión" y "Artículo especial". De 412 artículos, 315 (76%) presentaron declaración de conflictos de interés. Por revista, el 73% de los artículos de Atención Primaria, el 68% de Medicina Clínica, el 60% de Revista Clínica Española y el 100% de Revista Española de Cardiología tenía declaración de conflictos de interés. Solo el 12% de las declaraciones describía alguna actividad susceptible de generar conflicto de interés, mientras que el resto afirmaba no tener. Además de una variabilidad considerable en la frecuencia de declaración de conflictos de interés, la presencia de actividades declaradas es baja. Parece necesario mejorar la uniformidad y transparencia de las políticas de declaración de conflictos de interés.

Disclosure of financial relationships between researchers and pharmaceutical companies is seen as an essential step in the management of potential conflicts of interest. The objective of the study was to evaluate the frequency of conflicts of interest disclosure in four Spanish biomedical journals: Atención Primaria, Medicina Clínica, Revista Clínica Española and Revista Española de Cardiología. Publications qualified as "Editorial", "Original Article", "Consensus Document", "Review" and "Special article" in 2012 were analyzed. Of 412 articles, 315 (76%) had a conflict of interest statement. By journal, 73% of the articles in Atención Primaria, 68% in Medicina Clínica, 60% in Revista Clínica Española and 100% in Revista Española de Cardiología had disclosure of conflicts of interest. Only 12% of disclosures reported activities, while the rest maintains "No conflict of interest". In addition to a considerable variability in the frequency of conflicts of interest disclosure, the presence of activities disclosed is low. It would be necessary to improve the consistency and transparency of the policy declaration of conflicts of interest.

A declaração das relações financeiras e pessoais de pesquisadores com empresas farmacêuticas é vista como um passo essencial na gestão dos potenciais conflitos de interesse. O objetivo do estudo foi avaliar as declarações de conflitos de interesses em quatro revistas biomédicas espanholas publicadas em castelhano: Atención Primaria, Medicina Clínica, Revista Clínica Española e Revista Española de Cardiología. Foram analisadas as publicações de 2012 classidicadas pelas revistas enquanto: "Editor", "Artigo Original", "Documento de consenso", "Revisão" e "Artigo especial". De 412 artigos, 315 (76%) apresentaram declaração de conflitos de interesses. Por revista, 73% dos artigos de Atención Primaria, 68% de Medicina Clínica, 60% da Revista clínica Española e 100% da Revista Espanhola de Cardiologia tinham declaração de conflitos de interesses. Apenas 12% das declrações descrevia qualquer atividade suscetível a gerar conflito de interesses, enquanto o resto alegou não ter. Ademais de uma considerável variabilidade na frequência de declaração de conflitos de interesses, a presença de atividades declaradas é baixa. Parece necessário melhorar a uniformidade e a transparência das políticas de declaração de conflito de interesses.

III Encuentro Nacional de Publicación Científica en Ciencias de la Salud / III National Meeting on Scientific Publication in Health Sciences

El III Encuentro Nacional de Publicación Científica en Ciencias de la Salud se desarrolló del 29 al 31 de marzo del año en curso, auspiciado por el Centro Nacional de Información de Ciencias Médicas y la Universidad de Ciencias Médicas de Santiago de Cuba y tuvo como tema central la Política Editorial en revistas biomédicas. Con la participación de directores y editores de una amplia representación de las revistas biomédicas nacionales, y dos invitados internacionales cuyas conferencias resultaron enriquecedoras, el taller marcó las pautas del trabajo editorial en lo adelante, en cuanto a los objetivos comunes a alcanzar para garantizar la calidad y visibilidad de las mismas en nuevas bases de dato.

The 3rd National Meeting for Scientific Publication in the Health Sciences was held from 29th to 31st of March this year, sponsored by the National Information Center of Medical Sciences and the Medical University in Santiago de Cuba had as main topic the editing policy in biomedical journals. With the participation of directors and editors of a wide representation of the biomedical journals, and two international invited personalities, who presented enriching lectures, the workshop set the standards of the future editorial work, regarding the common objectives to be reached to guarantee their quality and visibility in new data base.

Factores limitantes de la producción científica en profesionales de la salud / Restrictive factors of the scientific production in health professionals

Se realizó un estudio descriptivo y transversal de 96 másteres en ciencias del Hospital Provincial Docente "Dr. Joaquín Castillo Duany" de Santiago de Cuba, de marzo a julio de 2015, con vistas a caracterizar los intereses, las necesidades profesionales y el proceso de organización y gestión para la publicación científica. Entre los integrantes de la serie el mayor interés por publicar se debía a la promoción de categoría docente, mientras que la falta de tiempo y el exceso de requisitos establecidos por las editoriales fueron las razones individuales limitantes para la publicación; igualmente, los profesionales aseguraron que existía demora en la recepción, aprobación y divulgación final de la investigación, y reconocieron su falta de habilidad en el empleo del método científico. Se concluyó que la baja producción científica en la institución era multifactorial y se recomendó la proyección de nuevas estrategias que incentivaran la creación y su divulgación, conforme a las vigentes políticas estatales aprobadas en Cuba.

A descriptive and cross sectional study of 96 masters in sciences from "Dr. Joaquín Castillo Duany" Teaching Provincial Hospital in Santiago de Cuba, was carried out from March to July, 2015, aimed at characterizing the interests, professional needs and organization and management process for the scientific work. Among the members of the series the highest interest when publishing was for the promotion from teaching category, while the lack of time and the excess of requirements by the editorials were the restrictive individual reasons for the publication; equally, the professionals assured that delay existed in the reception, approval and final publication of the research, and they recognized their lack of skills in the use of the scientific method. It was concluded that the low scientific production in the institution was multifactorial and the projection of new strategies was recommended that motivated the creation and its popularization, according to the present state policy agreed in Cuba.

Publicación científica: una mirada crítica al quehacer de la red de bibliotecas médicas de Santiago de Cuba / Scientific publishing: a critical look at the work of the medical library network in Santiago de Cuba i: en

Se realizó una investigación observacional, descriptiva y transversal con el propósito de conocer el comportamiento de la publicación científica de los bibliotecarios de la salud en la provincia de Santiago de Cuba, desde enero de 1998 hasta agosto de 2013, para lo cual se efectuó una revisión exhaustiva de los artículos de su autoría en la revista MEDISAN y a través de los buscadores de Internet y de las revistas médicas cubanas. Los resultados revelaron que un número muy reducido de bibliotecarios publicaba como autores principales o coautores, a pesar de que existían problemas científicos identificados en sus unidades, susceptibles de ser investigados; contaban en sus bibliotecas con recursos tecnológicos y acceso a información actualizada; poseían calificación profesional y disponían en el territorio de la revista MEDISAN -- publicación de mayor producción científica en el país en materia de salud. -- Lo obtenido en este estudio pudiera estar relacionado con el poco desarrollo de la competencia investigativa, lo que evidencia la necesidad de ejecutar acciones que permitan alcanzarla, como corresponde a los bibliotecarios del siglo XXI.

An observational, descriptive and cross-sectional study was carried out with the purpose of knowing the state of the scientific publishing of health librarians in Santiago de Cuba province, from January 1998 to August 2013; thereby an exhaustive review of their articles in the journal MEDISAN, through Internet search engines and Cuban medical journals was conducted. The results revealed that a very small number of librarians had published as main authors or co-authors, although there were scientific problems identified in their units, which required to be studied; they had technology resources and access to current information in their libraries; they were professionally trained and could use the journal MEDISAN -- publication of the greatest scientific production in health in the country. -- The results of this study could be related to the little research competence, demonstrating the need to take actions to achieve such competence, as befits the librarians of the 21st century.

Fate of Articles Rejected by Indian Pediatrics.

The present study was conducted to determine the fate of manuscripts rejected by Indian Pediatrics (IP), and to identify the factors facilitating publication of a rejected manuscript elsewhere. Database (PubMed, IndMed) and Google searches were performed to trace the manuscripts published elsewhere any time after rejection by Indian Pediatrics in the year 2002. Eighteen per cent of the rejected submissions (62 out of 347) were eventually (till July 2009) published elsewhere. These manuscripts subsequently appeared in 33 different journals; Indian Journal of Pediatrics published the maximum numbers (n=22). Seventy four per cent of the rejected papers were published in journals with a impact factor lesser than Indian Pediatrics. Rejection before initiating peer-review, and rejection on the grounds of overinterpretation of results or poor statistical analysis diminished the chances of subsequent publication, whereas manuscripts rejected on grounds of poor originality or poor language had greater chances of being published elsewhere. Rejection of a manuscript by IP does not preclude publication, but rejected manuscripts are published more often in non-pediatric journals or journals with a lower impact factor, although the occasional exception exists.

Publication trends of research articles from infectious diseases specialty in a medical journal from India.

Background: Details about research productivity in the infectious diseases specialty from India are lacking. Objective: To analyse publishing trends and research productivity of articles related to infectious diseases in the Journal of the Association of Physicians of India (JAPI). Materials and Methods : We carried out bibliometric analysis of articles related to infectious diseases specialty from JAPI published between 2000 and 2011. Data were derived from the journal's website and the articles were analysed for type (original article, case reports, etc.), microorganism (bacterial, viral, etc.) place of the research and timelines for publication. Results : Out of 2977 articles published in JAPI over last 12 years, 256 articles belong to infectious diseases subspecialty. Infectious diseases contributed 11-18% of the published articles per year in JAPI during the last decade. Original articles (31%), case reports (38%) and correspondence (22%) constitute the majority of article types, while remaining 9% was made up by images. Bacterial (22%), protozoal and helminthic (20%), HIV (15%) and mycobacterial (16%) diseases lead the type of microorganisms represented in the research articles. Mumbai (16%), Delhi (9%) and Kolkata (7%) are the top three places contributing to the articles, followed by Chandigarh and Chennai. Original articles and case reports took approximately 14 months for publication, as compared to 6 months for an image (P < 0.0001). Conclusion : Infectious diseases specialty contributes about 15% of articles per annum in JAPI. HIV and tuberculosis together account for 30% of published litearture with fair representation from other organisms. Mumbai and Delhi are the leading contributors towards research productivity in this specialty.

Fate of Articles Rejected by Indian Pediatrics.

The present study was conducted to determine the fate of manuscripts rejected by Indian Pediatrics (IP), and to identify the factors facilitating publication of a rejected manuscript elsewhere. Database (PubMed, IndMed) and Google searches were performed to trace the manuscripts published elsewhere any time after rejection by Indian Pediatrics in the year 2002. Eighteen per cent of the rejected submissions (62 out of 347) were eventually (till July 2009) published elsewhere. These manuscripts subsequently appeared in 33 different journals; Indian Journal of Pediatrics published the maximum numbers (n=22). Seventy four per cent of the rejected papers were published in journals with a impact factor lesser than Indian Pediatrics. Rejection before initiating peer-review, and rejection on the grounds of over-interpretation of results or poor statistical analysis diminished the chances of subsequent publication, whereas manuscripts rejected on grounds of poor originality or poor language had greater chances of being published elsewhere. Rejection of a manuscript by IP does not preclude publication, but rejected manuscripts are published more often in non-pediatric journals or journals with a lower impact factor, although the occasional exception exists.

Publication trends of a biomedical journal from India.

Background: The details about the research productivity of the biomedical journals published from India is lacking. We analyzed the publishing trends and the research productivity of the Journal of the Association of Physicians of India (JAPI). Materials and Methods: This was a bibliometric analysis of a biomedical journal. The data was obtained from the website of JAPI about the publications between 2000 and 2011. The articles were analyzed for the type (original article, case reports, correspondence, pictorial image, reviews, editorials, philately and miscellaneous), subspecialty (endocrinology, cardiology, etc), and place of the research work (Mumbai, Delhi, etc). Descriptive statistics giving data in numbers and percentages were used. Results: JAPI published 2977 articles over last 12 years (12 volumes and 134 issues). Case reports (29.5%), original articles (22.6%), and correspondence (20.5%) constitute 3/4 of the published articles. JAPI showed a gradual declining trend of published articles per issue (29.5 in 2000 to 17 in 2011). The data about 1798 research articles was analyzed further. Most of the articles belong to the Endocrinology, neurology, and infectious diseases. Mumbai is the leader over past 12 years in contributing toward the articles followed by other three metros. Conclusion: JAPI showed a declining trend in the number of published articles over last decade. Metro cities contributed the maximum research articles and the subspecialty coverage skewed in favor of Endocrinology.

Autoría en artículos biomédicos: el caso de imaginología / Authorship in biomedical articles: the case of imaging

The definition of authorship is a subject of ongoing discussion wherein elements of prestige and academic career are involved. As a potential source of conflicts, it must be handled with extreme strictness to avoid difficulties when presenting scientific outcomes. Both a review of international standards relating to regarding authorship, accepted to date, and the position of the editorial board of the Revista Chilena de Radiología are presented.

La definición de autoría es un tema de discusión permanente, donde se ven involucrados elementos de prestigio y carrera académica. Siendo una potencial fuente de conflictos, debe ser manejado con extrema rigurosidad, para evitar dificultades al momento de presentar resultados científicos. Se presenta una revisión de los criterios internacionales referidos a autoría, aceptados a la fecha, y la postura del cuerpo editorial de la Revista Chilena de Radiología.