Abstract

Aim: To determine the level of evidence (LE) of articles published in Revista Chilena Cirugia (RCC) in the period 2007-2012 and their association with year of publication, subject area and university affiliation (UA). Material and Methods: Bibliometric study. An analysis of articles published between 2007 and 2012 in the RCC, applying the classification of the Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine (OCEBM) was performed. The sample is composed of all articles published in the period under study, which was feasible to apply the CEBM classification. The variables analyzed Were LE, research design, year of publication, subject area and UA dichotomized (Yes/No). The LE of the items was determined by three independent investigators and discrepancies were resolved by consensus. We performed an exploratory analysis of the data and the results are presented using descriptive statistics. Results: Of the 688 articles published in the period, 452 meet the selection criteria. The most frequent LE was 4 and 2b (91.4% and 5.8% respectively). The most frequent research designs were case report and retrospective case series (45.6% and 32.3% respectively). The subject areas that most articles provided were liver, biliary tract and pancreas; and esophagus, stomach, duodenum and small intestine (18.6% and 18.1% respectively). The 76.5% of the articles presented UA. These had a higher proportion of articles with LE greater than 4 respect of those without UA (9.5% vs 5.6% respectively). Conclusion: A significant proportion of articles published in RCC during the study period are of low LE.