Original Research
U.S. publication trends in social and administrative pharmacy: Implications for promotion and tenure

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sapharm.2011.10.002Get rights and content

Abstract

Background

There is no consensus on the preferred approach to assess journal quality. Procedures previously used include journal acceptance or rejection policies, impact factors, number of subscribers, citation counts, whether the articles were refereed or not, and journals cited in books within the discipline. This study built on the work of previous authors by using a novel approach to assess journal quality in social and administrative pharmacy (SAdP).

Objectives

To determine U.S. SAdP faculty perceptions of prestigious journals for their research, SAdP faculty perceptions of prestigious journals by their promotion and tenure (P&T) committees, and current research trends in SAdP.

Methods

A census of U.S. colleges and schools of pharmacy was conducted using an e-mailed survey and an open-ended approach requiring respondents to list their preferred journals.

Results

Seventy-nine SAdP faculty reported that the 5 most prestigious journals were JAMA, New England Journal of Medicine, Health Affairs, Health Services Research, and Medical Care. These journals were selected because respondents wished to seek broad readership.

Conclusions

Results of this study can be used as a guide by U.S. SAdP faculty and P&T committees to assess the quality of publications by pharmacy administration faculty with the caveat being that pharmacy versus nonpharmacy journals will be chosen based on the fit of the article with the audience.

Introduction

Evaluating journal quality is an arduous task in the social sciences. Social and administrative pharmacy (SAdP) is a broad discipline encompassing the profession, pharmaceutical care, general medicine, health policy, pharmacy manpower, marketing, public health, and economics (pharmacoeconomics, pharmacoepidemiology, and pharmacogenomics).1, 2, 3, 4 As such, the research borne from this discipline may be published in a variety of general and specialty journals. The introduction of new journals both within pharmacy administration and health service research compounds the task of evaluation. Furthermore, there is no consensus on the preferred approach to assess journal quality. Procedures that have been used include journal acceptance or rejection policies, impact factors, number of subscribers, citation counts, whether the articles were refereed or not, and journals cited in books within the discipline.5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 In SAdP, the approach adopted in various articles has been the development of expert panel(s) to develop a listing of journals for respondents (faculty or administrators) to rate.8, 10, 11, 12 The varied results of this body of literature cannot be explained simply by the introduction of new journals over the years, but maybe by the changing trends in SAdP faculty research. The objective of the present study was to build on the work of previous authors “to quantify the publication records of our scientists with respect to discipline specificity,”12 and to use a novel approach to assess journal quality in SAdP. Instead of presenting a checklist, an open-ended approach was used to determine top-tier journals in SAdP. This will be the first study evaluating journal quality in SAdP that does not provide a checklist of journals, but instead requires respondents to provide journal names, thus avoiding potential acquiescence (yea-saying) bias.11 The objectives of the study were to determine U.S. (1) SAdP faculty perceptions of top-tier or prestigious journals for their research, (2) SAdP faculty perception of top-tier or prestigious journals by their promotion and tenure (P&T) committees, and (3) current trends in SAdP faculty scholarship.

Section snippets

Participants

A census of all U.S. colleges and schools of pharmacy was conducted. An invitational survey was e-mailed to 410 potential study participants with a Masters, Doctor of Pharmacy, PhD, or other doctoral degree included in the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy’s (AACP) social and administrative sciences faculty listing from May 2010 to December 2010. The AACP list included pharmacy administration faculty from all pharmacy schools/colleges across the United States, except for 1, which did

Participants

Seventy-nine respondents returned usable surveys (Table 1). Most of the respondents were male (66%) senior faculty members (professor or associate professor, 69%) with tenure with the highest degree listed being a doctor of philosophy (93%) obtained from a school or college pharmacy. Almost all respondents (95%) reported that tenure was offered at their institution, two-thirds had a SAdP graduate program (66%), and there was no separate SAdP department at most sites (70%). Participating

Discussion

The present authors used an open-ended, 2-part question for U.S. faculty to rate journal quality requiring faculty to list the journals they regarded as prestigious and then rate them on a scale from 1 to 10. There was a lack of overlap for SAdP faculty publications (Table 4) and their perceptions of top-tier journalsc

Conclusion

A comparison of faculty perceptions of top-tier journals and perceived P&T perceptions of top-tier journals showed that the adjusted quality ratings were more aligned with faculty perceptions of P&T journal quality ratings. This implies that faculty perceive journal recognizability as important to P&T committees. SAdP research publications in this study showed that the face of SAdP is changing. SAdP faculty have demonstrated versatility with health policy agenda shifts. The results of this

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