[ evaluation of accuracy of article writing in scientific journals of nursing-midwifery in Tehran]

ABSTRACT

As most researchers are unaware of the quality of articles published in scientific journals of nursing-midwifery, findings from these studies are not used in clinical practice. This study was conducted to evaluate the accuracy of articles published in nursing-midwifery journals in Tehran in 2008 as regards design and methodology of writing a scientific paper. In this cross sectional study, all original articles published in scientific journals of nursing-midwifery in Tehran in 2008 were evaluated. Research methodology in different sections of articles including, abstract, introduction, methods and materials, results, discussion and references were assessed. Totally, 52 criteria were taken into consideration, articles were evaluated on the basis of these criteria and classified into 3 categories of "correct", "relatively correct" and "incorrect". Data analysis was done by chi-square. Eighty three original articles published in 3 selected journals were evaluated. On the whole, format of the papers was correct in 45% of articles, in 8% it was relatively correct and in 47% the presenting format was incorrect. Inaccuracies found in the incorrectly written articles were found in the following sections abstracts 53%; introduction 69.7%, methods and materials 32.2%; results 45.4%; discussion 48% and references 25.3%. Articles published in nursing-midwifery journals have major flaws. Implementations for reducing mistakes in article writing would result in increasing application of the study results: