Table 2. Characteristics of all Italian (IT) research journals and a randomly selected group of UK research journals indexed in Medline.
| Characteristic | IT journals (n = 76) | UK journals (n = 76) | p |
| Publishes research involving, n | 0.415† | ||
| Both humans and animals | 53 | 49 | |
| Humans only | 20 | 20 | |
| Animals only | 3 | 1 | |
| Neither | 0 | 6 | |
| No. of articles/year, 2000–2007, median (IQR) | 60 (37–92) | 93 (45–193) | 0.006* |
| Start year, median (IQR) | 1983 (1953–1993) | 1992 (1983–2000) | <0.001* |
| International editorial board, n | 47 | 70 | <0.001† |
| % of articles authored internationally, 2005, median (IQR) | 37 (7–62) | 83 (62–91) | <0.001* |
| Language, n | <0.001†a | ||
| English | 45 | 76 | |
| English+Italian | 22 | 0 | |
| Italian | 9 | 0 | |
| Online archive, n | 43 | 74 | <0.001† |
| PubMed link to online archive, n | 26 | 68 | <0.001† |
| Archive coverage in years, median (IQR) | 6 (4–7) | 10 (7–16) | <0.001* |
| Archive access, n | <0.001† | ||
| Open access | 18 | 13 | |
| Embargo (≤24 months) | 1 | 20 | |
| Payment required | 24 | 41 | |
| No online archive | 33 | 2 | |
| Article types, 2000–2007, median (IQR) | |||
| Letters, % of all articles | 1.5 (0.5–3.6) | 0.6 (0–3.8) | 0.070* |
| RCTs, % of clinical trialsb | 36.1 (20.8–49.4) | 44.7 (25.9–65.7) | 0.029* |
| Indexed for impact factor, 2006, n | 28 | 54 | <0.001† |
| Impact factor, 2006, median (IQR) | 1.2 (0.9–1.7) | 2.7 (1.5–3.7) | <0.001* |
| Indexed in SCImago database, n | 75 | 76 | 1.000§ |
| SCImago journal rank, median (IQR) | 0.09 (0.06–0.15) | 0.25 (0.11–0.52) | <0.001* |
| H index, median (IQR) | 10.0 (8.0–18.0) | 23.5 (13.8–45.5) | <0.001* |
| Cites/document (2 years), median (IQR) | 0.86 (0.45–1.39) | 2.32 (1.25–3.57) | <0.001* |
a For the comparison English-only vs. not English-only; b For 72 IT and 59 UK journals that published at least one clinical trial in 2000–2007. * Mann-Whitney U test; † chi-square test; § Fisher's exact test. IQR, interquartile range; RCT, randomized controlled trial.