Visibility and productivity of the biomedical Peruvian journals

INTRODUCTION: Biomedical journals have suffered world wide revolutions due to globalization of information, evolving from the printed version to the electronic one. The status of Peruvian medical journals is not currently known.OBJECTIVES: To determine indexing, production for 2005 to 2007; and visibility of Peruvian biomedical journals for 2008.METHODS: We identified indexed journals in Medline, SciELO-Peru, Redalyc, LILACS, and others, through informatic search and described the journals production with more indizations, estimating the original research production index. An analysis of electronic visibility of the journals most indexed in SciELO-Peru, Redalyc and SISBIB data bases is done.RESULTS: We identified 29 current journals by 2007. Only Revista de Gastroenterologia del Peru was indexed to Medline. Revista Peruana de Medicina Experimental y Salud Publica was the journal with more production, with 176 publications between 2005 and 2007.Anales de la Facultad de Medicina was the journal with the higher original investigation index, with 0,61. Anales de la Facultad de Medicina had the higher number of electronic visits with 963 965 visits in 2008.CONCLUSIONS: There is a great diversity of biomedical journals in Peru but few are indexed and only one is seen in Medline. Original research production is not high but journals electronic visibility is above 600 thousand visitors.KEY WORDS: investigation, scientific and technical publications, periodical scientific medical publications, medical journals.