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Accuracy of References in Five Biomedical Informatics Journals

Affiliations of the authors: Department of Biomedical Informatics and Emergency Medicine, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN (DA); Schools of Medicine (JR) and Dentistry (KR) Meharry Medical College, Nashville, TN.

Correspondence and reprints: Dominik Aronsky, MD, PhD, Department of Biomedical Informatics, Eskind Biomedical Library, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, 2209 Garland Avenue, Nashville, TN 37232-8340; e-mail: <dominik.aronsky{at}vanderbilt.edu>.

Received for publication: 08/25/04; accepted for publication: 10/29/04.

Objective To determine the rate and type of errors in biomedical informatics journal article references.

Methods References in articles from the first 2004 issues of five biomedical informatics journals, Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, Journal of Biomedical Informatics, International Journal of Medical Informatics, Methods of Information in Medicine, and Artificial Intelligence in Medicine were compared with MEDLINE for journal, authors, title, year, volume, and page number accuracy. If discrepancies were identified, the reference was compared with the original publication. Two reviewers independently evaluated each reference.

Results The five journal issues contained 37 articles. Among the 656 eligible references, 225 (34.3%) included at least one error. Among the 225 references, 311 errors were identified. One or more errors were found in the bibliography of 31 (84%) of the 37 articles. The reference error rates by journal ranged from 22.1% to 40.7%. Most errors (39.0%) occurred in the author element, followed by the journal (31.2%), title (17.7%), page (7.4%), year (3.5%), and volume (1.3%) information.

Conclusion The study identified a considerable error rate in the references of five biomedical informatics journals. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of references and should more carefully check them, possibly using informatics-based assistance.

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