RESUMO
OBJECTIVE: To find out how much information of the Vancouver Norms (VANNOR) are given to prospective authors in the Instructions for Authors (IFA) in a sample of Mexican medical journals (MMJ) published in 1994 and 1995. DESIGN: Prospective, cross sectional, descriptive, observational. MEASUREMENTS: The IFA in the last issue of the MMJ that were published in 1994 and 1995, were reviewed and 121 characteristics in the VANNOR were scored in nine categories (characteristics, presentation, title page, summary and key words, text order and contents, references, tables, illustrations and other instructions). A one point score was given to any characteristic present in order to obtain a score for each category and a total score for each journal. The total scores in the VANNOR affiliated journals (N = 33) versus the non-affiliated ones (N = 27) were evaluated by the Mann-Whitney and exact Fisher test with alpha = 0.05 (two-tailed). RESULTS: A statistically significant higher score was found in the IFA of VANNOR journals in 22 of the 121 characteristics, in six of the nine categories, as well as in the total score. CONCLUSION: VANNOR affiliated journals offer a significantly higher amount of information regarding the IFA than those not affiliated.
