An overview of JAN editorials from 2014 to 2019: Who cares?

Our attention has recently been drawn to two JAN editorials published late in 2019 where the question discussed substantially regarded the role of empirical research as editorials, and the JAN policies regarding editorials (Clifton & Banks, 2019; Watson, 2019). Reading this debate was also really interesting because it was an example of how an academic journal can promote and develop a discussion. However, alongside the question discussed, it was visible that in the analysis regarding editorials—their inclusive or exclusive approach (under the authorship of the editorial board of the journal vs. opened to all)—the themes mainly addressed and the subsequent influence across the professional community as a whole, have been neglected to date. To our best knowledge, only Giannoni (2008) published an analysis of editorials of medical journals identifying some main functions of editorials, as an expert introduction to relevant topics dealt with in the journal or as a critical commentary of events at the interest of the medical community. Weintrout (2013) defined an editorial as an argumentative text with persuasion as its main purpose; it is meant to influence the public opinion, to promote critical thinking and to call for action. Editorials have also been described as articles presenting the journal's opinion on an issue, thus reflecting the way of thinking of the journal's editorial board. Most editorials present or critique articles published in the same issue of the journal, as well as debate new important topics for the professional and/or academic community (Peh & Ng, 2010). Moreover, while for some journals, editorials uniquely represent authors' opinions, for other journals, they represent the position of the journal—an opinion the editors agree with (Fontanarosa, 2014). When we stumbled across the two editorials cited above (Clifton & Banks, 2019; Watson, 2019), we were just ending a broad analysis on editorials published by several nursing journals in the last five years; thus, we have undertaken the occasion to scope the 136 editorials published by JAN from January 2014 up to December 2019 with the intent to identify a profile. From each editorial included we extracted data regarding: (a) year of publication; (b) title; and (c) author(s) and country/ies involved, distinguishing: (i) 'sole-country authorship' when the country was the same for all authors involved; (ii) 'lead-country authorship' when the country of the first author was different from that of the other author(s); and (iii) 'co-authored-country authorship' when the authors were from collaborating country/ies. We have also provided a brief summary of each editorial. In preparing the summaries, we first worked independently and then agreed upon a final summary. Then, using a free software (Word Art, 2019), we provided a word tag to each word in order to estimate the frequency of words contained in the titles by collapsing those with common roots or that were synonymous and excluding numbers and grammatical elements. As a result, we created a word cloud in which the size of each word in relation to the whole indicates that word's prominence. We then estimated the influence of each editorial to the community using the Citation Index to conceptually symbolize the association of a scientific production by its publishing research author, and then we used the Altmetrics Score to explain both the volume and the nature of attention that the research received online, all of which are available from the JAN website (Altmetrics, 2019). Data were collected on an index day (20 December 2019) and then adjusted for year of publication. As reported in Table 1, in the last six years JAN has published editorials from 21 countries, where the UK contributed less than a half (65, 47.8%). A total of 37.5% (51) of editorials were signed by a sole author, whereas 32.4% (44) were signed by two and 30.1% (41) were signed by three or more authors. Most of the editorials were written by sole-country authors (93, 68.4%) mainly from the UK (57, 61.3%), Australia (12, 12.9%) and the USA (9, 9.7%). However, countries that most frequently co-authored editorials with other countries included Australia (27, 62.8%), followed by the UK (26, 60.5%) and Canada (12, 27.9%). Countries Editorialsa a 'sole-country authorship' articles and'lead-country authorship' articles. 136 (%) Sole country authorship article(s) 93 (68.4%) Co-authored country authorship article(s)b b 'lead-country authorship' articles and 'co-authored-country' articles. 43 (31.6%) In the last six years, Roger Watson (the Editor-in-Chief of JAN) signed 14 (10.3%) 'sole-authorship' editorials and one (0.7%) 'lead-co-authored' editorials, followed by Alexander M. Clark from Canada/UK (zero 'sole' and 9, 6.6%, as 'lead co-author'), Michelle Cleary from Australia (zero 'sole' and 7, 5.1%, as 'lead co-author') and Niall McCrae from the UK (5, 3.7%, 'sole' and 2, 1.5%, as 'lead co-author'). We then applied the tag words from the word cloud with the intent of detecting the most frequently used terms in the editorials' titles. As expected, the most current word was 'nurse' (59, 6.5%), followed by 'research' (34, 3.7%), 'JAN' (13, 1.4%), 'clinic' (13, 1.4%), 'health' (12, 1.3%), 'academic' (11, 1.2%) and 'care' (8, 0.9%), as reported in Table 2. The words 'research' and 'academic' reflect the debate around the academic career and nursing research; however, clinical issues were also mentioned, as appeared in the terms 'clinic', 'health' and 'care'. The decontextualization of words from their original context prevents any form of analysis that would allow a purely quantitative approach to gain a general idea of the texts (Figure 1). Words 907 (%) Nurse 59 (6.5) Nursing (45) Nurse(s) (14) Research 34 (3.7) Research (31) Researcher(s) (3) JAN 13 (1.4) JAN (12) Journal of Advanced Nursing (1) Clinic 13 (1.4) Clinic (1) Clinical (11) Clinician (1) Health 12 (1.3) Academic 11 (1.2) Academic (8) Academics (2) Academically (1) Care 8 (0.9) Care (7) Healthcare (1) In general, citations ranged from 0–66 (adjusted according to the year of publication, from 0–13.20) and Altmetrics measured from 1–249 (adjusted, from 0.50–204.00). As reported in Supplementary Table S1, the most cited editorial was 'Data collection and sampling in qualitative research: Does size matter?' by Cleary, Horsfall, and Hayter (2014) (total = 66; adjusted = 13.20) followed by 'Using social media for continuous professional development' by Morley and Chinn (2015) (total = 29, adjusted = 7.25) and then by 'H-indices: An update on the performance of professors in nursing in the UK' by Watson, McDonagh, and Thompson (2017) (total = 19; adjusted = 9.50). On the other side, the editorials with the highest values in Altmetrics Score were 'Shouldn't we all be clinical academics?' (total and adjusted = 204.00) just published by Gibson (2019), 'Using social media for continuous professional development' by Morley and Chinn (2015) (total = 249, adjusted = 62.25), and 'Taking a stand against predatory publishers' by Darbyshire, McKenna, Lee, and East (2017) (total = 189; adjusted = 94.50). Over the last six years, JAN has developed an inclusive approach both for countries and authors. The importance of cross-cultural understanding and global cooperation in nursing has been widely recognized for its impact on international-based research, as well as for its capacity to promote quality care, thus care accessibility and universal coverage. Including editorials by authors from different countries could strengthen their widespread consideration as a medium that reflects cross-cutting issues throughout the world. In this light, it is visible that JAN functions as a laboratory where authors of all countries can provide their editorials. The analysis of the most-used words (Park, Griffin, & Gill, 2012) makes it visible that the editorials reflect the academic profile of JAN, which is focused on nursing as a discipline. The themes developed through editorials seem ample and cover a wide range of topics that can attract readers' different interests. Not marginally, the word 'JAN' has also been reported in several editorials suggesting both a continuous self-reflection and celebration given the recent 40-year anniversary. On the other side, it is also visible through the less frequently represented words, for example, 'education' and 'management', that these topics are not the core elements of the journal. Without any pretention to rank editorials, and with the limitation of not having sophistically adjusted their citations as well as not having qualitatively measured them (e.g. if self-cited or tweeted, against or in agreement with the contents), the emergent data suggest that published editorials both scientifically and professionally influence the entire community of nurses, via citations, news and/or social media. Thus, editorials remain an important way of communication and debate; echoing Rolfe (2019), the nursing discipline requires debate and discussion where the value is the plurality of voices. It remains among the key responsibilities of academic journals to nurture this mission. On the other side, as academicians, we have to continue to encourage younger generations to approach, criticize and further discuss hortatory, expository and persuasive texts—as editorials are—and all the while learn how to write them in order to contribute actively to the nursing debate and worldwide growth. None to declare. This editorial has not been subjected to a peer review process. Please note: The publisher is not responsible for the content or functionality of any supporting information supplied by the authors. Any queries (other than missing content) should be directed to the corresponding author for the article.

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