OBJECTIVETo explore, on the basis of principles of bibliometrics, the distribution of the authors of the articles published in Chinese Journal of Pediatrics, and the types of the institutions and the different regions from where the manuscripts were submitted in order to make a clear view of the characteristics and the status of cooperations in pediatric research work; to ascertain, among them, the core authors, core institutes and core regions; and to analyze the significance of corresponding authors, a new regulation adopted by this Journal in recent years, and to explore, furthermore, the funding status of the studies.

METHODBased on the information drawn from Chinese Medical Current Content (CMCC), bibliometric method was used to analyze the publications in Chinese Journal of Pediatrics and their authorship during the period from 1996 to 2005.

RESULTTotally 3337 academic articles were published during the ten years; of which the number of articles written by more than one authors was 2951, accounting for 88.43 %, with a degree of collaboration as 4.12. The number of articles by a single author was 386 (11.57%). A total of 234 core authors contributed to 1031 research papers published (30.90% of all). As for the regions from where the papers were submitted, the top one was Beijing, which had 968 articles published (29% of all). And for the institutes, the number of the papers from the hospitals affiliated to medical schools was 2095 (62.78% of all), ranked the first. The second was research institutes which had 261 articles published in the Journal (7.82%), and 68 articles were from colleges and universities which ranked the third (2.03%). The top 10 institutes in number of papers had published 1273 articles (38.15% of all). The articles, from research projects funded by certain grants published in this Journal increased almost every year, from 7.44% of 1996 to 25.82% of 2005', which reflected timely and objectively a growing tendency in pediatric research and that funded research projects by certain garnts could be an important support to the publication of academic papers. The corresponding authorship as a signature regulation was introduced by this Journal in 1999, which played a positive role in pushing the leading work of key authors in construction of research groups. There were 2243 articles of pediatric clinical studies, (67.22%) and 1094 of basic research (32.78%).

CONCLUSIONChinese Journal of Pediatrics had a wide distribution of authors and a high cooperative rate. This Journal had a group of core authors who were strong in academy, active in research and productive in papers, and had a strong positive impact on this Journal. But it was also revealed that the research powers in the field of pediatric study were not evenly distributed. The guideline adopted by and for this Journal was clear and correct. The articles published in this Journal not only objectively reflected the distribution of the research powers and the latest achievements in pediatric study over the country, but also had its focus, which played a certain leading role in pediatric research.