Table 3.

Age-corrected citation rates for the three compared dedicated pediatric surgical journals in the three investigated timeframes.

Years	Journal of Pediatric Surgery	European Journal of Pediatric Surgery	Pediatric Surgery International
1985–1988	0.375 (0–4.727)	0.065 (0–1.212)	0 (0–1)
2000–2003	1.158 (0–5.684)	0.947 (0–4.176)	0.622 (0–3.125)
2015–2018	2 (0–6.75)	1 (0–4)	2.334 (0–4.5)

Data are presented as median and ranges. Age-corrected citation rates are calculated from the absolute number of citations divided by the years since publication of an article up to 2019 as the latest year with complete citation counts. Differences occurred in the European Journal of Pediatric Surgery for the comparison of 1985–1988 with both 2000–2003 (P <0.0001) and 2015–2018 (P <0.0001). These differences also occurred in Pediatric Surgery International (P = 0.0003 and P = 0.0231, respectively).