Practical impact?

Tyrer, in ‘From the Editor's Desk’, ¹ despite recognising the mundaneness of journal editors' preoccupation with impact factors, sings of the improved citation factor and high citation half-life of The British Journal of Psychiatry. While this is certainly praiseworthy and no doubt a result of the tireless efforts of Tyrer and a number of other people, it also raises the question of what the impact factor means to a clinician with a busy and well-habituated practice. The impact factor for them is an artificial statistic that may have no impact on their practice. It would be helpful to know whether there is a measure of the impact of a journal article on clinicians' practice and how journals perform on that measure. Citation statistics can be inflated by basic science or hypothesis-based or epidemiology-based articles (to name a few), and none of these may have any impact whatsoever on our day-to-day practice, whereas the much more lowly weighted case reports (remember Freud) can have a significant impact. Yet case reports may not be highly cited. If such a measure is indeed developed, the romantic song will then be even sweeter; and not at all mundane. Robert Burns would probably forgive then.