[Indicators of obsolescence of the medical literature in a mexican pediatric journal].

INTRODUCTION Obsolescence is the decrease of the validity of the information in time and is known as literature aging. OBJECTIVES To analyze the obsolescence of the literature of original articles published in 10 years in a Mexican pediatric journal. MATERIAL AND METHODS Articles published in the Clinical Bulletin of Sonora Children's Hospital (BCHIES) were analyzed. The variables were: year, volume, number, percentage of original articles, reference year, total of references per article, operational and file; articles citations and self-citations, Price Indices, Burton-Kebler and Brookes, half-life, and aging factor. RESULTS The 87 original articles (37%) contained 1,726 references, and the average was 19.8 per article; operational references were 398 (23%) and the file references, 1,287 (74.5%). There were 30 (34.4%) citations to articles, and self-citations were 19 (21%), half-life, 13.2 years; the aging factor was 0.86, the annual loss of income was 14%. CONCLUSIONS The percentage of original articles from the BCHIES is close to 40%, likely to improve, and in the literature archive, the aging factor reversed.