Pediatric publications in family medicine journals: quantity and content.

OBJECTIVE To investigate the number and content of articles on pediatric medicine in family medicine journals. DESIGN Computerized survey in PubMed of the abstracts of all papers published between 2000 and 2002 in four family medicine journals. Abstracts were classified as research or nonresearch. Papers dealing with pediatric medicine were further categorized by main subject area. SETTING Two North American family medicine journals and two British family medicine journals. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Number and content of abstracts in family medicine journals: research or not research, describing children only or including adults. RESULTS Of 1199 abstracts reviewed, 947 (79%) were from research articles and 252 (21%) from nonresearch articles. Of the research abstracts, 73 (7.7%) related to pediatric problems, and 28 (3%) related to both pediatric and adult problems. Of the nonresearch abstracts, 22 (8.7%) involved pediatric patients and 7 (2.8%) combined pediatric and adult populations. In all, nearly 11% of the articles related to pediatric issues. The most common subjects were infectious disease (26%), adolescent medicine (15%), organization of medical care (12%), and asthma (12%). CONCLUSION Although pediatric care is an essential part of family practice, the percentage of papers on pediatric medicine in family medicine journals is small. We propose that more papers related to pediatric issues be submitted to family medicine journals, which serve as the main source of medical information for family physicians.