Anales de Pediatría is the official journal of the Asociación Española de Pediatría (Spanish Association of Paediatrics, AEP), its organ of scientific expression. It has been published without interruption since October 1968, when it was launched under the name Anales Españoles de Pediatría (Spanish Annals of Paediatrics). In 2003, its title was changed to Anales de Pediatría (Annals of Paediatrics).

One of the main goals of the AEP is to disseminate rigorous and updated scientific evidence on different fields in paediatrics. Anales is a peer-reviewed biomedical journal that publishes original articles on clinical research in paediatrics conducted in Spain, Latin America and other countries, as well as review articles and guidelines developed by the different paediatric specialty sections and associations integrated under the umbrella of the AEP. Until a few years ago, the journal also published the presentations and communications given at the annual congress of the AEP in special issues.

Through its 50 years of history, the different editorial teams of the journal have ceaselessly strived to streamline its administration, improve the quality of its contents, increase its scientific rigour, promote its diffusion and increase its national and international visibility.1,2Fig. 1 lists the editors-in-chief of Anales to date.

Figure 1.

Editors-in-chief of Anales Españoles de Pediatría and Anales de Pediatría. Photographs obtained from the Internet, with the knowledge of the pertinent individuals, especially from www.bancodeimagenesmedicina.com.

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The print journal is published in Spanish and, since 2014, the online version that can be accessed at www.analesdepediatria.org is bilingual (Spanish/English). The current publisher of the journal is Elsevier, and its ISSN is 1695-4033.

Anales is indexed in the major international databases: Science Citation Index Expanded, Index Medicus/Medline, Scopus, Embase/Excerpta Medica, MEDES, IBECS and the Índice Médico Español (IME, now included in the InDICEs CSIC).

The Asociación de Pediatras Españoles (Association of Spanish Paediatricians, APE) was established in 1949. In 1970 it changed its name to the current name (AEP).3 In the early 1940s there were only two regional associations of paediatrics in Spain, those of Madrid and of Catalonia, which had been established in 1913 and 1926, respectively. Further information on the history of the AEP can be found on its website, aeped.es.

Other regional associations emerged around the 1950s: the associations of Galicia (1949), Valencia (1953) and Castile-Asturias-Leon (1956). This was followed by the establishment in the 1960s of the regional associations of Aragon, the Canary Islands, Basque Country-Navarre, Eastern Andalusia, Western Andalusia-Extremadura, and Balearic Islands. The regional associations started integrating with their own particularities into the APE. Many regional associations of paediatrics launched their own publications (Bulletins). Sections on paediatric specialties started to be established within the APE3,4 since 1961, such as the Sections of Cardiology and Neurology (1967), followed by those of Neonatology, Nephrology and others from 1973.

The first number of Anales Españoles de Pediatría was published in October 1968 on occasion of the XII National Congress of the APE, which was held in Torremolinos. The then-professor of paediatrics in Madrid, Ciriaco Laguna Serrano, also President of the APE, was the driving force and first editor-in-chief of Anales. In his “Presentation”, which occupied the first two pages of the first issue, Laguna remarked: “The absence of a journal in paediatrics of national scope as an official organ of the APE was perplexing. Such a journal need not interfere with other paediatric publications… and we hereby greet the editors and contributors of specialty journals in Spain and other Spanish-speaking countries. Anales intends to reprint some of the articles of greatest scientific value published, back in the day, in the bulletins of their respective regional associations”.

Table 1 and Fig. 2 present the table of contents of the first issue. Tables 1 and 2 present the members of the first Editorial Committee and the successive committees and content editors of the journal.

Figure 2.

Cover of the first issue of Anales Españoles de Pediatría (October 1968).

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The first publisher of the journal was Garsi, located in calle Londres 43, Madrid.

For the purpose of discussion, we will refer to three distinct periods in the history of the journal.

From 1969 to 1972, Anales was published as a Journal-Bulletin. According to an editorial by professor Suárez, Anales was the “source of news on Spanish paediatrics, mainly based on the activity of regional associations, and the work conducted in Spain by government and non-governmental organisations.”5 The contents consisted of citations of significant works published in various journals with commentaries, that is, did not include original works (see Table 1).

In the 1969 issue (vol II, No. 1), Manuel Súarez Perdiguero (Seville), President of the APE, already appeared as the Editor-in-chief, with the Executive Board of the APE in 1969 presented as the Editorial Committee. Suárez Perdiguero was a Professor of Paediatrics and Child Development and Dean of the School of Medicine of the Universidad de Sevilla.6

In 1973 the journal underwent a radical transformation.

Since 1973, the Editor-in-chief was Ernesto Sánchez Villares, President of the AEP and professor of Paediatrics in Valladolid.7

The Advisory Committee corresponded to the Executive Board of the AEP (president, vice-presidents, secretary, vice-secretary, treasurer, accountant, nonvoting members, presidents of the regional associations). The Editorial Committee, on its part, consisted of 27 renowned Spanish paediatricians. This organisational structure, “encompassed the most representative groups in Spanish paediatrics. In addition to academics, it included professionals immediately responsible for the management of major hospitals and those promoting the various paediatrics specialties represented in the Association” (Editorial, January 1973).

The first original article, published in the January–March issue of 1973, was “Sistemática de las pubertades y pseudopubertades precoces,” authored by Federico Collado.

Between 1973 and 1976, the sections in the journal were: original articles, reviews, section on case reports, diagnosis and treatment, practical paediatrics (“paediatric paediatrics” was the title in the early volumes) and surgery. Paediatric Surgery was very prominent in the early years, including articles on its Congresses and Meetings, until the launch of the journal Cirugía Pediátrica. Other sections were paediatric education, specialty sections (some of them published the summaries of the oral communications in their early meetings), Committee recommendations, summaries-excerpts and Letters to the Editor.

Between 1973 and 1976 there was a fixed section on the History of Paediatrics, which featured contributions from authors such as Luis S. Granjel, J. Riera, J.M. Jiménez Muñoz, P. Frontera Izquierdo and J. Vázquez Pérez Coleman.

In an Editorial published in Anales in 1983, Sánchez Villares discussed the trajectory of the journal over the past 10 years.8 He praised the efficient work of Garsi, its publisher, with especial mention of Florentino García, a key figure in this house. He also highlighted the flaws of the journal: the lack of definition of certain sections, the delay in the publication of works, the low quality of the tables and figures and the uneven contents of the issues.8 At the time, Anales was distributed on a subscription basis, with subscription fees covering 50% of its costs; the remaining costs were covered by funding from AEP and revenue from advertising. The journal was published every two months between 1968 and 1977, from which time there have been 12 issues published each year, not counting the special issues.

Sánchez Villares was the editor-in-chief of Anales from January 1973 to December 1989. He was followed by Manuel Bueno Sánchez, professor of Paediatrics in Zaragoza since 1975, from January 1990 to December 1995.9

In this period and through 1996, the Advisory Committee corresponded to the Executive Board of the AEP, and the Executive Committee was formed by the presidents of the medical specialty sections. The Editorial Committee had 53 members.

In January 1996, Juan Rodríguez Soriano, a professor of paediatrics in the Universidad del País Vasco and chief of the Department of Paediatrics of the Hospital de Cruces, became editor-in-chief and remained in this position until December 1999.10–12

The publisher, Garsi, was succeeded by Ergon (1990s), which in turn was succeeded by Doyman in 2000.

Anales Españoles de Pediatría was included in the Current Contents-Clinical Practice, Index Medicus and Medline databases from 1974 to 2002, with only a brief hiatus during this period (1994–1995). Rodríguez Soriano commented on this aspect in an Editorial from 1999, also highlighting the start of the online publication of the journal through the AEP website.13 “Although Anales has achieved considerable scientific quality and a significant international distribution, its articles are not cited often enough for the journal to be included in the Science Citation Index (SCI)… despite the efforts made, its distribution and impact in Latin America have not reached the desired levels”.13

Doctor E.G. Pérez-Yarza was the editor-in-chief between 2000 and 2013.

Pérez-Yarza was the chief of the Department of Paediatrics of the Hospital Materno-Infantil Donostia of San Sebastián and, since 2011, an associate professor of paediatrics in the Universidad del País Vasco (UPV/EHU).

The Executive Board of the AEP continued to be the Advisory Committee of the journal. At this point, the Editorial Committee had grown to include 81 specialists.

Anales de Pediatría (Barcelona) started its trajectory under this new name in 2003, replacing Anales Españoles de Pediatría, to express a desire for openness and universality, in a spirit that was similar to the one behind the changes in the names of the journals of the paediatric societies of France, Belgium and Scandinavia.14 The new name was approved in the General Assembly of the 51st Congress of the AEP.

During the 2000–2013 period, further historical milestones were achieved under the leadership of professor Pérez-Yarza and with the direction of the AEP14–21:

• a.

  The full text of Anales was published online in open access. Print copies were distributed at no cost to the members of the AEP. In 2000, the circulation grew from 3000 to 10000 copies.

• b.

  The appointment of the editor-in-chief by a universal vote was replaced by the proposal of a candidate by a permanent Committee for approval in the General Assembly of the AEP.

• c.

  The journal was indexed for the first time in the Journal Citation Reports (SCI-JCR) in 2009, and was first included in the impact rankings.

• d.

  The management of the journal, flow of manuscripts, quality assurance controls, independent peers in charge of reviewing the manuscripts and independence of the editorial team were brought to the level of the journals of greatest international prestige.

The Jerónimo Soriano award was created to recognise the best article published in the journal. It was named in homage to the XVI century physician from Teruel that is considered the first Spanish paediatrician. This award was given by the AEP in collaboration with the Sociedad de Pediatría de Aragón, La Rioja y Soria, the Town Council of Teruel and the College of Physicians of Teruel.

The AEP also launched Noticias AEP (AEP News). Issue 1 came out in October 2012, offering news about the Association and its Congresses, and interviewing various prominent figures.

The publisher changed to Elsevier-Doyma in 2009 and subsequently to Elsevier. An electronic manuscript management system was introduced.

Empar Lurbe i Ferrer was the first woman to lead Anales, from June 2013 to June 2017. She is a full university professor of Paediatrics and chief of the Department of Paediatrics of the Consorcio Hospital General Universitario de Valencia.

In an Editorial dating from 2013, she presented the objectives for her tenure as editor-in-chief: “(a) increasing the quality, importance and impact of the manuscripts received, (b) reducing response times to authors, (c) improving the journal's impact factor and quartile ranking and (d) Strengthening our presence and recognition in the scientific world.”22

At the close of her tenure, Lurbe, in an Editorial from 2017, wrote: “The impact factor of Anales de Pediatría in 2017 (referring to 2016) is 1140, the highest it has achieved since it first started to be indexed in the JCR database.” Another favourable bibliometric indicator was the journal's rise from the fourth quartile to the third in the journals in its field.23

The Jerónimo Soriano award was replaced by the Anales de Pediatría award. Later on, an award named Juan Rodríguez Soriano, which remains to date, was established to acknowledge “the article that has most contributed to the impact factor of the journal in the past 2 years”.

The Spanish/English bilingual edition started to be published in 2014. This entails a considerable effort on the part of the editorial teams, and, combined with the free access to the articles, promotes the relevance, diffusion and national and international visibility of Anales.24

Two salient milestones achieved in this period were the formation of a peer-based Editorial Committee, established in 2013 and still active today, with continuity with the previous Committee, as two of its associate editors remain.

Last of all, the current editor-in-chief of Anales, since June 2017, is Corsino Rey Galán, professor of Paediatrics in the Universidad de Oviedo since 2016 and chief of Paediatric Intensive Care of the Hospital Universitario Central de Asturias.

The Advisory Committee continues to correspond to the Executive Board of the AEP, and the Editorial Committee is composed of 44 paediatricians.

The current editors have been ever mindful of potential conflicts of interest, in adherence to current ethical principles. The visibility of Anales continues to increase, with visits to the site coming mainly from Spain, Mexico and the United States.25

There are several articles in Anales26–29 and one book30 assessing the importance and quality of its published contents by means of bibliometrics, authored by J. González de Dios, R. Aleixandre-Benavent, A. Alonso-Arroyo and others (the results of decades of research, from 1995, 2002, 2001, and especially 2011 and 2013).

The impact factor is a widely used metric, but also a controversial one. In the case of Anales, it has increased progressively since it was first applied to the journal: the impact factors as reported by JCR have been 0.363 (2009), 0.57 (2010), 0.77 (2011), 0.867 (2012), 0.722 (2013), 0.773 (2015), 1.140 (2016) and 1.318 (2017). The impact factors estimated for the previous period (1997–2001) ranged between 0.052 and 0.101.

Abad et al. have noted that Anales contributes to the international visibility of a significant volume of the Spanish research output in paediatrics.1,31 In the 2010–2014 period, Anales published 965 works, which amounted to 35.8% of the Spanish paediatrics research output and 1% of the worldwide output.1

An objective yet unmet is to increase the volume of Latin American research published in the journal, especially now that involvement in international research networks is common. In the 2010–2016 period, only 4.9% of the articles were by authors affiliated with Latin American institutions.32

Anales is the only Spanish journal devoted to a medical specialty other than Cirugía Pediátrica included in the Medline database, and it is the only one included in the Web of Science (WoS). Other specialty journals in Spanish in these databases are Archivos Argentinos de Pediatría (in Medline since 2008) and Revista Chilena de Pediatría (published since 1931 and included in Medline since 2014).

The metrics also reveal that the profile of Spanish research in paediatrics is highly specialised. Thus, 61.7% of the articles have been published in paediatric subspecialty journals. This is one of the potential threats to the continued growth of the impact of Anales, that is, that authors of specialty articles may prefer to publish in other journals with a higher IF.

Nevertheless, a different perspective can be gained from the analysis of citation numbers and IFs, as described by Quinn et al. (2013),33 who provided a historical perspective of the paediatric articles published between 1945 and 2010. Their analysis of the most cited articles revealed a sustained interest in works based around criteria or guidelines rather than clinical trials, as well as those of a descriptive nature (e.g., Brunton, Menkes, Kawasaki). In evidence-based medicine, the Internet allows the widespread dissemination of studies focused on patient care, exploring new ideas, and guiding the path for future research. The most cited articles were by LA Papile, LM Dubowitz, JM Tanner, LO Lubchenco, ME Avery, LE Gibson and R Guthrie, among others. The authors listed the 100 most cited articles for this period, which were from 17 countries (none of them Spain).33

Throughout the decades, Anales has published various supplements that have provided information on the evolution of paediatrics in Spain. Among them, we can cite the works published in the Paediatric Education section by Ballabriga (1982),34 Sánchez Villares (1987 and 1992) and Collado, among others.35

Fig. 3 shows the cover of the supplement published on occasion of the XVIII Spanish Congress of Paediatrics and the First Extraordinary Congress of the ALAPE held in 1992. Another 2 special issues were published containing presentations made in congresses and symposia. Their subject was not history, but they were part of the history of the AEP.

Figure 3.

Cover of the supplement devoted to the XVIII Spanish Congress of Paediatrics and the First Extraordinary Congress of the Asociación Latinoamericana de Pediatría held in Seville in June 1992.

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We have already mentioned that the journal had a fixed section devoted to the History of Paediatrics in the 1970s. Some of the journals that currently have a high IF do have a History section. On the other hand, we must also take into account that since 2011 the AEP has been publishing its Cuadernos de Historia de la Pediatría (Records of the History of Paediatrics): https://www.aeped.es/comite-historia/cuadernos.

Anales has published several In Memoriam articles acknowledging notable paediatricians: Julio Monereo (1978), Ciriaco Laguna (1991), Fanconi (on occasion of the centenary of his birth in January 1993), Jaso (1994), Antonio Galdó (1994), Juan Bosch Marín (1995), Frank Oski (1997), Waldo Nelson (1997), Joaquín Cravioto (1998), Prats Viñas (1998), Torrado da Silva (1998), Juan Rodríguez Soriano (2011), Ángel Nogales Espert (2013) and Claudine Amiel-Tison (2014).

In addition, Anales has published some articles written by members of the Committee on the History of Paediatrics of the AEP, such as: the first descriptions of some malformation syndromes36or the Centenary of the First Spanish Congress on Paediatrics in 1914,37 in addition to some Letters to the Editor about the first monographs on Spanish paediatrics on the 400th anniversary of the death of Cervantes38or devoted to “eponyms in Paediatrics”.39

This year of 2018 marks the 50th year of uninterrupted activity of Anales de Pediatría. It is a fitting time to celebrate and also to reflect.

This may be a short span of time from a historical perspective, but it is sufficient to assess a journal that has been at the forefront of Spanish paediatrics and paediatric publications in Spanish.

This article is not intended to provide a bibliometric analysis of Anales, but a historical perspective on its trajectory. It has the limitations that come with the difficulty in retrieving older data and merging them in a balanced and coherent way with more recent data. The inaccuracies that it may have were not intentional, and may even encourage further historical research.

Anales has contributed to the account of the progress of paediatrics, the Asociación Española de Pediatría, the advent of children's hospitals, the transition from the local puericulture specialist to the health district primary care paediatrician, from public health care delivered from the Social Security system to the National Health System, the development of private medicine, primary care services, paediatric specialties, the MIR medical residency programme, the training of specialists and continuing education.

Through all these years, multiple authors, editors, content contributors and anonymous reviewers have participated in Anales, and we ought not forget our esteemed readers. Clinicians, scientists, educators, physicians in training, managers and health care administrators that have contributed to improve the health of the paediatric population in Spain and beyond have all put their best effort and hopes in Anales: “The best information for the better care of patients”. Perhaps it would be fitting to publish a book commemorating Anales with contributions from those that lived its history, its milestones.

Anales has also been a driver of cohesion in Spanish paediatrics.

We propose to researchers and editorial teams alike, always prioritising the scientific quality of studies in their evaluation, to use bibliometric indices (such as the impact factor) as a guide, but not as a rigid yardstick in the decision to consider or accept incoming manuscripts. We would like to propose that, as is done in other journals, a small proportion of the content, at least in supplements, be devoted to the humanities and to the humanization of paediatrics,40 even if these articles may have a lower impact a priori: articles with room for ethics, philosophy, history, sociology, psychology, anthropology and the arts, so that the best information is also aimed for the better care of paediatricians.

The aim of the Paediatrics History Committee is to disseminate the history of paediatrics. There were no financial conflicts of interest.