A record Impact Factor of Kardiologia Polska in 2022: Our ambitions for the future

Abstract

Not available

On June 28, 2022, Clarivate Analytics (formerly Thomson Reuters) announced the newest Journal Impact Factors (IF) of all periodicals indexed in Web of Science Core Collection. In line with our estimations, the 2021 IF of Kardiologia Polska (Kardiol Pol, Polish Heart Journal), the official journal of the Polish Cardiac Society, is 3.710, and^n it has substantially increased as compared to the value released last year (IF 3.108). Despite well-known limitations of the two-year IF as the most widely used metric of the journal’s prestige, without a strong correlation between an average citation count and the actual scientific relevance of the content, we ought to celebrate this success, which should be perceived as an indirect proof of the potential in clinical science of all Polish cardiologists and researchers dealing with cardiovascular disorders. If we believe in the power of evidence, this IF proves the high standing of our journal among Polish periodicals (Table 1).

Table 1. Top 15 Polish journals based on 2021 Journal Citation Reports, Clarivate

Journal	Journal Impact Factor 2021
Cellular & Molecular Biology Letters	8.702
Oeconomia Copernicana	6.574
Biocybernetics and Biomedical Engineering	5.687
Polish Archives of Internal Medicine	5.218
Reviews on Advanced Materials Science	5.028
Biology of Sport	4.606
Archives of Civil and Mechanical Engineering	4.042
Pharmacological Reports	3.919
Archivum Immunologiae et Therapiae Experimentalis	3.831
Kardiologia Polska	3.710
Archives of Medical Science	3.707
Cardiology Journal	3.487
Ecohydrology & Hydrobiology	2.957
Journal of Human Kinetics	2.923
Advances in Medical Sciences	2.852

Regardless of the unprecedented effect of COVID-19 on the current ranking, with a huge increase in this metric, in our case the citation counts of the top cited articles of Kardiol Pol from 2019–2020 (Table 2) demonstrate a quite well-balanced distribution among various types of published items and diverse topics, even if COVID-19 appears in the titles of 3 of the 9 articles with the highest number of citations recorded in 2021.

Table 2. Nine papers published in our journal in 2019 or 2020, which were most cited in 2021 and most contributed to the 2021 IF of 3.710

	Title	Authors	Reference	Citation count
1	Decline in the number of coronary angiography and percutaneous coronary intervention procedures in patients with acute myocardial infarction in Poland during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic	Jacek Legutko, Łukasz Niewiara, Stanisław Bartuś, Sławomir Dobrzycki, Mariusz Gąsior, Marek Gierlotka, Janusz Kochman, Maciej Lesiak, Jerzy Matysek, Andrzej Ochała, Tomasz Pawłowski, Robert Gil, Adam Witkowski	Kardiol Pol. 2020; 78 (6): 574–576	11
2	New advances in the prevention of transcatheter aortic valve implantation failure: current and future perspectives	Francesco Piroli, Luca Franchin, Francesco Bruno, Ovidio De Filippo, Fabrizio D’Ascenzo, Federico Conrotto	Kardiol Pol. 2020; 78 (9): 842–849	11
3	Effects of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic on the number of hospitalizations for myocardial infarction: regional differences. Population analysis of 7 million people	Mariusz Gąsior, Marek Gierlotka, Agnieszka Tycińska, Adam Wojtaszczyk, Michał Skrzypek, Klaudiusz Nadolny, Jerzy Robert Ładny, Sławomir Dobrzycki, Andrzej Hausner, Krystian Wita, Wojciech Wojakowski, Michał Hawranek	Kardiol Pol. 2020; 78 (10): 1039–1042	9
4	Blood pressure at high altitude: physiology and clinical implications	Grzegorz Bilo, Sergio Caravita, Camilla Torlasco, Gianfranco Parati	Kardiol Pol. 2019; 77 (6): 596–603	8
5	Atrial fibrillation in patients with cardiac implantable electronic devices: new perspectives with important clinical implications	Giuseppe Boriani, Marco Vitolo	Kardiol Pol. 2019; 77 (12): 1119–1120;	8
6	Observed and relative survival and 5-year outcomes of patients discharged after acute myocardial infarction: the nationwide AMI-PL database	Bogdan Wojtyniak, Marek Gierlotka, Grzegorz Opolski, Daniel Rabczenko, Krzysztof Ozierański, Mariusz Gąsior, Krzysztof Chlebus, Łukasz Wierucki, Daniel Rutkowski, Dariusz Dziełak, Lech Poloński, Tomasz Zdrojewski	Kardiol Pol. 2020; 78 (10): 990–998;	8
7	Initial experience of pulmonary embolism response team with percutaneous embolectomy in intermediate-high- and high-risk acute pulmonary embolism	Marek Roik, Dominik Wretowski, Andrzej Łabyk, Michał Ciurzyński, Katarzyna Kurnicka, Barbara Lichodziejewska, Szymon Pacho, Michał Potępa, Agnieszka Szramowska, Janusz Trzebicki, Marek Gołębiowski, Piotr Pruszczyk	Kardiol Pol. 2019; 77 (2): 228–231	7
8	Longitudinal effects of a nurse-managed comprehensive cardiovascular disease prevention program for hospitalized coronary heart disease patients and primary care high-risk patients	Andrzej Pająk, Renata Wolfshaut-Wolak, Agnieszka Doryńska, Piotr Jankowski, Maria Fornal, Tomasz Grodzicki, Catriona Jennings, Kalina Kawecka-Jaszcz, Kornelia Kotseva, Krystyna Pająk, David Wood	Kardiol Pol. 2020; 78 (5): 429–437	7
9	Telephone follow-up of patients with cardiovascular implantable electronic devices during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic: early results	Diana Paskudzka, Agnieszka Kołodzińska, Andrzej Cacko, Przemysław Stolarz, Łukasz Łyżwiński, Grzegorz Opolski, Marcin Grabowski	Kardiol Pol. 2020; 78 (7–8): 725–731	7

On behalf of Associate Editors, I express our gratitude to all the authors, reviewers, and supporters. The journal is an example of teamwork, and contributions of all sizes matter. All of them are as much appreciated as every single citation of any published material from 2019 or 2020, which was included in the latest IF calculation. The top citing authors who contributed to the largest extent to the 2021 IF of our journal have been listed in Table 3.

Table 3. The scientists who most frequently cited the articles from Kardiologia Polska in 2021

Author	Number of citations
Mariusz Gąsior	61
Maciej Lesiak	49
Anetta Undas	38
Jacek Legutko	37
Dariusz Dudek	29
Wojciech Wojakowski	29
Andrzej Pająk	29
Stanisław Bartuś	28
Katarzyna Mizia-Stec	28
Marek Grygier	27
Grzegorz Opolski	27
Jadwiga Nessler	27

We wish to acknowledge the excellent work of committed and prompt reviewers whose contribution to our standing cannot be overrated, and the researchers who wrote the largest number of reviews submitted in 2021 are presented in Table 4.

Table 4. Top reviewers of 2021

	Reviewer	Number of completed reviews
1	Marek Grygier	15
2	Piotr Musiałek	15
3	Artur Dziewierz	14
4	Piotr Szymański	12
5	Sylwia Iwańczyk	12
6	Piotr Kukla	10
7	Piotr Jankowski	10
8	Paweł Krzesiński	10
9	Sylwia Sławek-Szmyt	10
10	Ludmiła Daniłowicz	9
11	Piotr Suwalski	9
12	Wojciech Wojakowski	9

We are aware of the fact that our journal faces an uphill struggle to sustain the IF above 3.5. At this level of IF, a monthly should not exceed the two-year denominator of 200 in the IF calculation. The decision to review and finally accept a manuscript, especially original articles and reviews or expert opinions (so-called citable items), should be made following in-depth analysis with emphasis on the unquestionable novelty for international scientists and on sound research methodology. The journal is for other researchers who seek stimulating ideas and valuable confirmation of their own concepts, so citation counts of Kardiol Pol represent a measure of the actual crosstalk of Polish cardiology with other research groups all over the world. Analyses pertinent to Poland, still of value from a local perspective, will be suitable for publication in following issues of our journal only if they advance the field and may attract the interest of peers; the list of articles without a single citation (even by their own authors!) over more than 2 years is of key importance to decide what to accept and what to reject. This publishing strategy is needed in a highly competitive world of cardiology journals. We wish to enter the first quartile (Q1, 25% top cardiology journals), which means the IF above 5, so there is a lot of work to do ahead of us.

In a situation uncertain in various ways, in particular, no financial support from the Ministry of Education and Science and the change of our publisher with new editorial staff, several scheduled activities aiming at increasing our current standing have been implemented slowly, or with delay. Everyday editorial activities are more and more time-consuming. We hope that the recent introduction of open-access article processing charges in mid-March 2022 will make our situation more stable and foreseeable.

We have further plans and ambitions to enhance the standing and visibility of Kardiol Pol. We have decided to continue the last year’s project to rename the journal to make the title of Kardiol Pol easier to understand worldwide, i.e. Polish Heart Journal (Pol Heart J). Given the present strategy of Clarivate Analytics, the change might lead to the appearance of 2 journals on PubMed, with the translation of the original title, Pol Heart J, considered a new periodical without any IF in the first year. I will do my best to minimize this risk, and negotiations with Clarivate are underway; there have been a few precedents of smooth transitions in similar journals, without a gap of a year with no IF for a new title. We cannot avoid this seminal change, and we truly believe that postponing it is harmful to the further growth of the journal.

The journal site should also be updated based on the best examples of cardiology journals with images, brief films presenting the latest best articles, and solutions to facilitate interactions with the readership. The current rapid editorial processing times should improve especially at the first stage; our aim is to reach 2 days from submission to the first decision, and 20 days from submission to the first reviews.

We would like to announce that as of August 1, 2022, Dr. Farkowski. MD, PhD, from the National Cardiology Institute in Warsaw, will serve as Editor of Educational Issues of Kardiol Pol. Broad dissemination of knowledge among all physicians interested in cardiovascular disorders is our duty, and the Polish version of the European Society of Cardiology guidelines and expert opinions prepared by Associations and Working Groups of our Society along with translations of some articles from Kardiol Pol will be available.

We sincerely invite you to submit your high-quality research to our journal. As a team, the editors still have the energy and passion to strengthen the position of Kardiol Pol.

Article information

Conflict of interest: None declared.

Funding: None.

Open access: This article is available in open access under Creative Common Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license, allowing to download articles and share them with others as long as they credit the authors and the publisher, but without permission to change them in any way or use them commercially. For commercial use, please contact the journal office at kardiologiapolska@ptkardio.pl.