Impact of Article Language in Multi-Language Medical Journals - a Bibliometric Analysis of Self-Citations and Impact Factor

BACKGROUND: In times of globalization there is an increasing use of English in the medical literature. The aim of this study was to analyze the influence of English-language articles in multi-language medical journals on their international recognition--as measured by a lower rate of self-citations and higher impact factor (IF). METHODS AND FINDINGS: We analyzed publications in multi-language journals in 2008 and 2009 using the Web of Science (WoS) of Thomson Reuters (former Institute of Scientific Information) and PubMed as sources of information. The proportion of English-language articles during the period was compared with both the share of self-citations in the year 2010 and the IF with and without self-citations. Multivariable linear regression analysis was performed to analyze these factors as well as the influence of the journals' countries of origin and of the other language(s) used in publications besides English. We identified 168 multi-language journals that were listed in WoS as well as in PubMed and met our criteria. We found a significant positive correlation of the share of English articles in 2008 and 2009 with the IF calculated without self-citations (Pearson r=0.56, p = <0.0001), a correlation with the overall IF (Pearson r = 0.47, p = <0.0001) and with the cites to years of IF calculation (Pearson r = 0.34, p = <0.0001), and a weak negative correlation with the share of self-citations (Pearson r = -0.2, p = 0.009). The IF without self-citations also correlated with the journal's country of origin--North American journals had a higher IF compared to Middle and South American or European journals. CONCLUSION: Our findings suggest that a larger share of English articles in multi-language medical journals is associated with greater international recognition. Fewer self-citations were found in multi-language journals with a greater share of original articles in English.