Introduction:

Bibliometric studies applied to scientific journals constitute instruments that allow evaluating the acting and impact of these.

Objective:

To analyze the articles published in the INVESTIGATION IN MEDICAL EDUCATION journal in the period 2012-2016.

Method:

A descriptive-retrospective bibliometric study of the documents published in the period 2012-2016 was performed. The studied variables were: total of numbers, total of articles, cites, average of cites per year, average of cites per articles, average of cites per authors, average of cites per authors per year, average of articles per author, average of authors per article, h index, g index, contemporary h index, hI index, normalized hI index, AWCR index, AW index, AWCRpA index, e index, hm index, annual hI index, H coverage, G coverage, documental typology, the authors’ affiliation, index of collaboration, bibliographical references, current relevance of the bibliography according to the index of Price and languages of the bibliographical references. The scienciometrics indicators were calculated using the software Harzing’s Publish or Perish 5 and taking Academic Google as database.

Results:

The journal has received 330 cites and it possesses an h index of 7; 280 articles (100 originals) with an average of 56.0 ± 33.05 per year were published. The most cited article obtained 37 cites (12.33 cites per year) and it was related with the technique of focal groups. The countries with bigger quantity of articles were: Mexico with 156, Spain with 6 as well as United States and Chile with 5; 550 signatory authors were counted and the index of collaboration was of 2.86; 3,465 bibliographical references (68.57% in English) were revised; the average of references for article was of 18.05 ± 13.49. The index of Price oscillated between 0.24 and 0.67 with an average of 0.31.

Conclusions:

The sections ‘Original Articles’ and ‘Abstracts’ stand out as the most used documental typologies. The most cited article was related with the technique of focal groups. Prevalence of Mexican authorship as well as of articles carried out by a single author and references in English language existed. The index of Price showed a comparable value with others high impact journals.