Readability of English Articles Published in Iranian Medical Journals and Their Comparison with Articles Published in English and American Medical Journals in 2018

Readability is one of the critical factors in choosing a suitable text to teach the students or ordinary people. Studies have shown that the readability of a text depends on the number of citations, type of article, journal impact factor, and journal scope. This study aimed at determining the readability in the most widely cited original English articles published in Iranian Medical Journals in 2018 and comparing them with the same type of articles in British and American Medical Journals; we also sought to determine the association between the level of readability of articles with the journal’s impact factor (IF) and the total number of citations.

In this cross-sectional study, according to the search conducted in the database of the Iranian Journal of Medical Sciences, we searched different databases of ISI journals, and the results showed us 80 journals. We selected one American and one British journal for each Iranian journal, which was similar in terms of the journal’s scope and impact factor. Then, the most cited original article in the latest issue of 2018 in each journal was extracted for review. Afterwards, we recorded five indicators of Iranian, American, or English journals, Impact Factor, number of citations to the article, journal’s scope, and GFI score in a data collection form. The obtained data were analyzed using SPSS version 25. 

Comparison of mean Impact Factor, number of citations to articles, and GFI score between the three Iranian, English,  and American Journal groups was statistically significant (p-value <0.05). Iranian journals' low GFI score of articles has caused the articles to be less cited (p-value = 0.022).

The mean readability score of articles published in Iranian journals seems to be lower than that of American and British journals. The low level of readability score has a direct correlation with the low number of citations to articles.