Who cites non-English-language pharmaceutical articles?

International audiencePURPOSE: The objective was to determine a link between the number of non-English language references in the bibliographies of publications in international pharmaceutical journals and the geographic origin of these publications. METHODS: A systematic prospective analysis of 7 international pharmaceutical journals in 2005-2006. All research articles whom corresponding author was a pharmacist were included. For each article, were recorded: - the geographic origin of the corresponding author (classified in: North America, Latin America, Oceania, Europe, Asia, others); - the title of the journal; - the number of non-English language references in the bibliography (classified in: Spanish, German, French, Portuguese, Dutch, Russian, Japanese, Chinese, others). RESULTS: 1,568 articles were included, corresponding to 45,949 bibliographic references, of whom 542 where non-English references. North America is the geographic zone of the world with the lowest rate of non-English language references in bibliographies of published articles; significant differences appear between North America and Europe, Latin America and Asia. A sub-analysis by countries shows that United States, United Kingdom, Australia and China present a specific low rate of non-English language references. The two journals with the lowest rate of non-English language references in bibliographies of published articles are edited in the USA. CONCLUSIONS: Despite some limitations, this study shows that pharmacists from regions where English language is the only or predominant language are refractory to include non-English language references in the bibliographies of their publications. The fundamental reasons of this restriction are not clear