Archives of Academic Emergency Medicine. 2023; 11(1): e54 EDITORIAL Journal Citation Report 2023 of Emergency Medicine Jour- nals; New Players in the Impact Factor Ranking Saeed Safari1,2∗, Mahmoud Yousefifard3,4 1. Emergency Department, Shohadaye Tajrish Hospital, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. 2. Chairman and Deputy Editor in Chief of Archives of Academic Emergency Medicine. 3. Medical Physiology Research Center, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. 4. Editorial Manager of Archives of Academic Emergency Medicine. Received: May 2023; Accepted: June 2023; Published online: 26 July 2023 Cite this article as: Safari S, Yousefifard M. Journal Citation Report 2023 of Emergency Medicine Journals; New Players in the Impact Factor Ranking. Arch Acad Emerg Med. 2023; 11(1): e54. https://doi.org/10.22037/aaem.v11i1.2107. Commenced from 1975 and calculated based on the number of overall journal citations in a year divided by the number of citable publications in the preceding two years, Journal Impact Factor ( JIF) became a convenient and conventional proxy to appraise a journal’s trustworthiness and its scholarly impact in a given field (1). Nearly a year ago, Clarivate Analyt- ics promised refinements in the provision of metrics of schol- arly journals of the Web of Science (WOS) database. The 2023 edition of the annual Journal Citation Reports ( JCR) finally debuted these appealing changes. Addressing their commit- ment to more stringent research integrity, they inaugurated the policy to assign JIF to all of their registered journals, in- cluding those indexed in the Emerging Source Citation Index (ESCI) and Arts & Humanities Citation Index (AHCI). Previ- ously, JCR assigned JIF merely to journals in the Science Ci- tation Index Expanded (SCIE) or the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) edition of WOS core collections. The expan- sion of JIF is commended as it is a decent solution to sur- mount hurdles associated with a lack of a consistent tool to evaluate all scholarly journals, especially contemporary ones that have emerged from the developing world and recently launched small publishers. Regarding the Emergency Medicine (EM) category, 22 jour- nals in the Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) attained JIF, adding up to the 32 journals of SCIE. For its first JIF allocation, the journal “Archives of Academic Emergency Medicine” (AAEM) was designated with a JIF of 5.4 and ac- ceded to the 5th position in EM journals, standing after the ∗Corresponding Author: Saeed Safari; Emergency Department, Shohadaye Tajrish Hospital, Tajrish Square, Tehran, Iran. Email: safari266@gmail.com, Tel: 009822721155, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7407-1739. highly prestigious journals of “World Journal of Emergency Surgery” (IF:8), “Resuscitation” (IF:6.5), “Annals of Emer- gency Medicine” (IF:6.2), and “Emergencias” (IF:5.5) and ranked as the first EM journal in Asia (Table 1 and 2)(2). Moreover, its position would rise to 4th EM journal world- wide when considering JIF without self-citation of 5.0, which exempts this journal from the probable nefarious editorial policies to increase its JIF bogusly (3). Congruous with the JCR recommendation to adopt a multi- faceted approach in appraising journals rather than solely re- lying on crude JIF, multiple indices should be contemplated when one attempts to gauge a journal’s performance (4). The Immediacy Index indicates how rapidly an article is pub- lished in a JCR year, thus providing a glance at journal prac- tices for augmenting publicity of its publication. The low rank of AAEM with an Immediacy Index of 0.3 alludes to the indispensable role of active presence in academic social net- works (e.g., Linkedin, Researchgate, and Semantic Scholar). Nevertheless, caution should be exercised when comparing ESCI journals with senior SCIE counterparts in employing some parameters. For instance, the cited half-life, defined as the median age of cited articles in a JCR year, is foreseeable to be lower for the nascent ESCI journals compared with the mature SCIE journals. Hence, we propose instituting a mod- ified parameter adjusted for the journals’ date of establish- ment or the history of indexing in main databases to sustain an impartial ranking of journals and avert biased decisions by researchers, institutes, or publishers when evaluating a jour- nal. Finally, in order to draw attention to the potential future de- velopments, we want to point out a consideration that might stay out of sight. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the prime concern of research was to shed light on this disease’s pre- This open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 3.0 License (CC BY-NC 3.0). Downloaded from: https://journals.sbmu.ac.ir/aaem/index.php/AAEM/index S. Safari & M. Yousefifard 2 Table 1: Top 10 emergency medicine journals sorted by 2022 journal impact factor Journal Name 2022 JIF JIF Without Self Cites 2022 JCI JCI Quar- tile AIS Quar- tile Article Influence Score Immediacy Index Cited Half- Life Total Cita- tions Citable Items % of Articles in Citable items World Journal of Emer- gency Surgery 8.0 7.6 2.41 Q1 Q1 1.970 1.0 4.6 3,207 57 66.67 Resuscitation 6.5 5.3 1.87 Q1 Q1 1.913 1.5 6.7 18,032 224 90.18 Annals of Emergency Medicine 6.2 5.9 2.30 Q1 Q1 2.222 1.5 11.1 13,098 92 84.78 Emergencias 5.5 3.8 1.40 Q1 Q3 0.562 1.6 2.9 944 38 94.74 Archives of Academic Emergency Medicine 5.4 5.0 1.51 Q1 Q1 1.035 0.3 2.4 827 80 76.25 Burns & Trauma 5.3 4.8 1.70 Q1 Q1 1.080 1.4 3.9 1,643 54 61.11 Academic Emergency Medicine 4.4 4.1 1.56 Q1 Q1 1.459 0.8 10.4 10,838 95 72.63 European Journal of Emergency Medicine 4.4 3.2 1.03 Q2 Q2 0.849 1.3 6.9 2,176 45 82.22 American Journal of Emergency Medicine 3.6 3.4 1.46 Q1 Q2 0.834 0.8 4.5 15,437 534 93.63 Scandinavian Journal of Trauma Resuscitation & Emergency Medicine 3.3 3.1 1.32 Q1 Q1 1.044 0.5 5.5 3,826 72 91.67 JIF: Journal Impact Factor; JCI: Journal Citation Indicator; AIS: Article Influence Score. Table 2: Top 10 emergency medicine journals sorted by 2022 journal impact factor Journal Name 5-Year JIF 5-Year JIF Quartile 2022 JCI JCI Quar- tile AIS Quar- tile Article Influence Score Immediacy Index Cited Half- Life Total Cita- tions Citable Items % of Articles in Citable items World Journal of Emer- gency Surgery 7.7 Q1 2.41 Q1 Q1 1.970 1.0 4.6 3,207 57 66.67 Burns & Trauma 5.9 Q1 1.70 Q1 Q1 1.080 1.4 3.9 1,643 54 61.11 Annals of Emergency Medicine 5.8 Q1 2.30 Q1 Q1 2.222 1.5 11.1 13,098 92 84.78 Resuscitation 5.4 Q1 1.87 Q1 Q1 1.913 1.5 6.7 18,032 224 90.18 Archives of Academic Emergency Medicine 4.5 N/A 1.51 Q1 Q1 1.035 0.3 2.4 827 80 76.25 Turkish Journal of Emer- gency Medicine 4.5 N/A 0.38 Q3 Q1 1.116 0.2 4.5 1,015 40 82.50 Academic Emergency Medicine 4.0 Q1 1.56 Q1 Q1 1.459 0.8 10.4 10,838 95 72.63 Scandinavian Journal of Trauma Resuscitation & Emergency Medicine 3.5 Q1 1.32 Q1 Q1 1.044 0.5 5.5 3,826 72 91.67 Emergency Medicine Journal 3.2 Q1 1.20 Q1 Q1 1.042 0.9 8.8 6,320 83 75.90 Western Journal of Emer- gency Medicine 3.1 Q1 1.06 Q1 Q1 1.023 0.6 5.1 4,170 65 96.92 JIF: Journal Impact Factor; JCI: Journal Citation Indicator; AIS: Article Influence Score; N/A: not applicable. vention, diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis. Consequently, the overall number of publications and subsequent citations soared, contributing to the inevitable high IF of journals dur- ing the pandemic, and the field of Emergency Medicine is not an exception (5). This claim is authenticated by the evident rise and subsequent piecemeal decline in the JIFs of the ma- This open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 3.0 License (CC BY-NC 3.0). Downloaded from: https://journals.sbmu.ac.ir/aaem/index.php/AAEM/index 3 Archives of Academic Emergency Medicine. 2023; 11(1): e54 jority of journals in the SCIE collection before and after the pandemic. As support to this assertion, one can note the on- going decrease in the proportion of articles about COVID-19 in eminent, highly cited journals such as the Lancet and New England Journal of Medicine, which further evince the im- pending drop of JIF for all journals in this field. Ultimately, we encourage all journals’ editorial teams around the globe to apprehend the imminent fall in their JIF and avert the misperception that they ought to adopt more strict criteria in assessing submissions to maintain their JIF. Instead, they should devise strategies such as opting for and investing in trending topics in the post-COVID era and motivating other researchers to submit their valuable non-COVID studies. Declarations Acknowledgments We kindly appreciate Dr. Amir Mohammad Tolouei and Dr. Shayan Roshdi Dizaji for their valuable input and contribu- tions to drafting this editorial. Conflict of interest None. Funding None. References 1. Garfield E. The history and meaning of the journal impact factor. Jama. 2006;295(1):90-3. 2. Web of Sciences. Journal Citation Reports 2023 [Available from: https://jcr.clarivate.com/jcr/home. 3. Myers PL, Rohrich RJ, Weinstein A, Chung KC. Be- yond the Impact Factor in Peer-Reviewed Literature: What Really Matters. Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. 2022;149(2):525-8. 4. Daugherty A, Hegele RA, Lu HS, Mackman N, Rader DJ, Weber C. Web of Science’s Citation Median Metrics Over- come the Major Constraints of the Journal Impact Factor. Arterioscler Thromb Vasc Biol. 2022;42(4):367-71. 5. Delardas O, Giannos P. How COVID-19 Affected the Jour- nal Impact Factor of High Impact Medical Journals: Bib- liometric Analysis. J Med Internet Res. 2022;24(12):e43089. This open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 3.0 License (CC BY-NC 3.0). Downloaded from: https://journals.sbmu.ac.ir/aaem/index.php/AAEM/index Declarations References