Bibliometric analysis of anaesthesia journal editorial board members: correlation between journal impact factor and the median h-index of its board members

Background. h-index is useful for quantifying scholarly activity in medicine, but this statistic has not been extensively applied as a measure of productivity in anaesthesia. We conducted a bibliometric analysis of h-index in editorial board members and tested the hypothesis that editorial board members of anaesthesia journals with higher impact factors (IFs) have higher h-indices. Methods. Ten of 19 journals with 2009 IF>1 were randomly chosen from Journal Citation Reports (R). Board members were identified using each journal's website. Publications, citations, citations per publication, and h-index for each member were obtained using Scopus (R). Results. Four hundred and twenty-three individuals filled 481 anaesthesia editorial board positions. The median h-index of all editorial board members was 14. Board members published 75 papers (median) with 1006 citations and 13 citations per publication. Members serving on journals with IF greater than median had significantly (P<0.05; Wilcoxon's rank-sum test) greater median h-index, citations, and citations per publication than those at journals with IF less than median. A significant correlation between the median h-index of a journal's editorial board members and its IF (h-index 3.01xIF+6.85; r(2)=0.452; P=0.033) was observed for the 10 journals examined. Board members of subspeciality-specific journals had bibliometric indices that were less than those at general journals. The h-index was greater in individuals serving more than one journal. European editorial board members had higher h-index values than their American colleagues. Conclusions. The results suggest that editorial board members of anaesthesia journals with higher IFs have higher h-indices.