Editorial performance evaluation of the journal “La Tunisie Médicale” from 2000 to 2019. Quasi-experimental study

Abstract

Abstract
Introduction: "La Tunisie Médicale" (ISSN 0041-4131), the only national journal indexed on Medline since 1965, is still facing the stagnation of its impact factor, which has not exceeded 0.3. The Tunisian Society of Medical Sciences (STSM), editor of "La Tunisie Médicale", launched in January 2010, a plan to support the visibility of its journal, based on the prioritization of publications in English, the reduction of clinical cases, and the quest for good systematic reviews.
Objectives: To evaluate, according to a comparative bibliometric approach centered on editorial processes, the strategy to support the editorial performance of the journal "La Tunisie Médicale", recommended by the STSM in 2010
Methods: This is a quasi-experimental bibliometric study of the editorial performance of the journal "La Tunisie Médicale", of the Before / After type, comparing the decade 2000-2009 (before) to the decade 2010-2019 (after) , following the launch of the editorial line reform program in January 2010. An editorial dashboard, specially designed for this bibliometric audit of the journal, was made up of five indicators relating to the proportions of articles published in English, such as "systematic review”, other than “case reports”, with multicenter study populations and multivariate statistical analysis plans. This assessment was based on data from the Web of Sciences platform, comparing bibliometric indicators between the two decades 2000-2009 and 2010-2019.
Results: Between the years 2000 and 2019, “La Tunisie Médicale” published 4,137 articles indexed in PubMed: 1989 in the decade (2000-2009) and 2,148 in that 2010-2019. Between these two decades, the proportion of publications written in English increased significantly from 7.64% to 53.37% (p <10-7). After a total absence, the number of systematic reviews reached 20 in the decade 2010-2019 (p <10-5), against a paradoxical increase in the number of “case reports” from 737 to 868 (p <0.05). The multicenter studies and multivariate analyzes decreased from 1.41% to 1.30% and from 0.45% to 0.51%, respectively, without any statistically significant difference.
Conclusion: The 2010 support plan for the journal "La Tunisie Médicale" had remarkable success in strengthening the publication of articles in English. However, he was confronted on the one hand with an ambivalent vision of Evidence Based Medicine (shortage of systematic reviews and abundance of case studies) and on the other hand with difficulties, a priori, in research methodology (scarcity multicenter studies and multivariate analyzes). A new TunisMed'2030 plan, based on the results of this study, is essential for the survival and promotion of "La Tunisie Médicale".