Cardiology Journals from Portuguese-Speaking Countries: Challenges and Opportunities

Keywords:
Cardiovascular Diseases; Periodicals as Topic; Bibliometrics; Bilinguism

Scientific development is currently happening at an increasingly faster pace. With this situation, the scientific journals are required to commit to disseminating new knowledge with greater agility and broad propagation by the main international indexers. On the other hand, the mission of the scientific journals is also to encourage the propagation and discussion of new subjects in scientific communities, a situation of great importance mainly for those journals associated with medical societies and with a predominantly national circulation.

With respect to scientific propagation at an international level, the use of the English language has been well defined as being universal, leaving those publications in other languages to the background. Only articles published in English in broadly indexed journals achieve a greater number of citations, collaborating effectively in consolidating the involved research groups and elevating the impact of the periodicals in which they were published.¹ On the other hand, health professionals in several countries still encounter difficulties in accessing the international scientific literature and find in their local language the primary means to keep up with new knowledge.

According to the indexer SCImago, from the company Elsevier, Portuguese-speaking countries were responsible for more than 20 thousand scientific publications indexed in the health-related area in 2015.² Of these, 1130 were published in the areas of cardiology or cardiovascular sciences, representing 2.1% of all the publications in these areas of knowledge.² Most of these studies originated from Brazil or Portugal, countries that have consistently ranked among the 30 most important in the production of knowledge in health sciences over the past two decades. Among the publications from Portuguese-speaking countries, there is a predominance of publications in journals with international circulation, written in English, which have a greater potential for knowledge dissemination. However, about 42% of the studies from Brazilian or Portuguese researchers have been only published in Portuguese or in both languages, English and Portuguese, emphasizing the relevance of these publications for countries of Lusitanian culture. According to the SciELO portal, the number of views of articles published in Portuguese in the Arquivos Brasileiros de Cardiologia, a journal with articles indexed in the portal in both Portuguese and English, totaled more than 4.6 million downloads in 2016, while the number of downloads of publications in English of these same studies were slightly more than 2.9 million.³ The greater number of views of articles in Portuguese both for original articles and articles focused on knowledge dissemination and discussion, clearly demonstrate the importance of maintaining the publications in our language for better access by our professionals.

Another important fact refers to the observation that the journals published by national societies concentrate mainly publications originating in their own countries, representing the main vehicle for the international dissemination of internally conducted research. In this sense, the Arquivos Brasileiros de Cardiologia continues to be the journal responsible for dissemination of approximately 25% of the Brazilian publications indexed in cardiology or cardiovascular sciences,⁴ the same happening with the Revista Portuguesa de Cardiologia with regard to almost 30% of the publications from Portugal in these areas of knowledge. On the other hand, these journals are able to publish less than half of the currently submitted articles, limiting the appropriate dissemination of studies by many researchers who find difficulties in accessing other means of publication.⁴

Based on these facts, scientific publications from countries with specific cultural characteristics, such as Portuguese-speaking ones, must be guided by policies that take into account both the need for wide dissemination of their contents at the international level, as well as their appropriate dissemination among members of their own professional community. With the increasing scientific research in cardiology and cardiovascular sciences in Portuguese-speaking countries in recent years, new opportunities have opened up for the expansion of our editorial activity. In this sense, the incorporation of the International Journal of Cardiovascular Sciences by the Brazilian Society of Cardiology, a journal published in English and Portuguese with a similar editorial quality as the Arquivos Brasileiros de Cardiologia, meets the conditions suitable for a greater international reach for the Brazilian cardiology science without neglecting a wide dissemination at the national level.⁴

References

• ¹
  Moreira LF. Impact of Brazilian papers in cardiology and cardiovascular sciences in the last decade. Arq Bras Cardiol. 2017;108(1):1-2.
• ²
  SCImago. SJR - SCImago Journal & Country Rank. 2015. [Accessed in 2017 Apr 10]. Available from: http://www.scimagojr.com/countryrank.php?category=2705&area=2700&year=2015
  » http://www.scimagojr.com/countryrank.php?category=2705&area=2700&year=2015
• ³
  Scielo. Métricas dos Arquivos Brasileiros de Cardiologia [Accessed in 2017 Apr 10]. Available from: http://www.scielo.br/statjournal.php?lang=pt&issn=0066-782X&collection=
  » http://www.scielo.br/statjournal.php?lang=pt&issn=0066-782X&collection=
• ⁴
  Moreira LF. Role of the International Journal of Cardiovascular Sciences in the increase of Brazilian publications in Cardiology and Cardiovascular Sciences. Arq Bras Cardiol. 2016;107(1):1.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  Jul-Aug 2017