Core journals of evidence-based physiotherapy practice

Abstract

To identify the core journals of evidence-based physiotherapy practice we conducted an analysis of the Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro), the most comprehensive database of physiotherapy clinical trials and systematic reviews. We compared our results to two earlier lists of core journals based upon citation analyses and rankings from the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) impact factors. As of 2 June 2000 the PEDro database contained 2,231 papers that had been published in 519 different journals with a single journal contributing from 1 to 109 papers. When journals were ranked based upon the total number of papers contributed to PEDro the top five journals were: Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, British Medical Journal, Spine, Physical Therapy, and Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. However when the journals were ranked based upon the average methodological quality of clinical trials the top five were: British Journal of Obstetrics and Gyn aecology, New England Journal of Medicine, Stroke, Scandinavian Journal of Rheumatology, and British Journal of Rheumatology. When judged by trial quality, the top five exclusively physiotherapy journals were Australian Journal of Physiotherapy, Physiotherapy Theory and Practice, Physical Therapy, Physiotherapy, and Physiotherapy Canada. Each approach to ranking the journals produced a different set and ranking of core journals to that of the two previous citation analyses. The current study's rankings were unrelated to ISI impact factors.