Indicators and factors related to one-year improved SCImago journal rank in nursing journals: A bibliometric analysis

Aims: To analyse the bibliometric data of nursing journals covering general fields, specializations, skills and practices and investigate the influence of selection factors on the one-year improved SCImago journal rank (SJR). Design: A bibliometric analysis. Methods: The study sample included academic journals in the field of nursing indexed in the Scopus and SJR database using data from 2020 to 2022. Quantile regression were performed that investigated the influence factors over the one-year improved SJR when variables were found to be non-normally distributed, characterized by extremely high kurtosis. Results: Results from 539 nursing journals retrieved from the Scopus and SCImago databases revealed that citation index remains the main factor that positively affects differences in SJR, while citable articles only affect the early stages of quantile regression. In addition, an excessively high number of research articles may negatively affect SJR, and the influence of self-citations can initially be positive but become negative the following year. Citations continue to be the dominant factor, while the rapid growth in the number of articles and self-citations must be addressed with caution.