OBJECTIVEThe paper was to evaluate the quality and characteristics of the Chinese Journal of Plastic Surgery(CJPS).

METHODSWith the database of Chinese Citation Index, the citation analysis was used to analyze the distribution of the cited original articles published in the CJPS from 2001 to 2005.

RESULTS1045 papers were published during the period, and there were 530 (50.72%) cited by other researchers. The total frequency of citation was 1598, and each original article was averagely cited 3.02 times by other researchers. The published papers were cited by 289 journals and self-citing rate was 7.57%. The distribution of the most frequently cited authors covered 25 provinces, with Beijing, Shanghai, Shanxi and Guangdong Province in the lead in research work relevant to plastic medicine.

CONCLUSIONSThe Chinese Journal of Plastic Surgery has published high quality articles in the past five years. It is one of the most important information resource for the Plastic Surgery researchers and of the most important medical journals.