International Performance of Iranian Medical Science Journals in Journal Citation Reports

With an increasing number of Iranian scientific journals indexed by international databases, assessment of their performance and status is also needed. The present study aims to investigate the international performance of Iranian medical journals.
To conduct the current study, bibliometric research method has been applied. International statuses of 21 Iranian medical journals indexed by Journal Citation Report (JCR) 2013 were studied using 20 different indicators. Web of Science (WoS), JCR and journals’ websites were used for data gathering.
Results of the study revealed that most of the papers published in the journals under study were written by Iranian researchers. Moreover, only 23.35% of citations to Iranian medical journals have been received from foreign papers or Iranian internationally collaborative papers. Based on the findings, no Iranian journal has impact factor above the median of the journals in the disciplinary category areas in which it is classified in JCR. Statistically significant relationships were found between foreign authorship and foreign citations as well as internationally- collaborative authorship and internationally-collaborative citations. This suggests that Iranian journals should attract more high quality international papers to increase their quality.
The findings indicated that the share of international authorship, citations and editorial board membership in Iranian medical journals is low.