Background: To analyze the production and repercussions of the scientific activity of Spanish authors in the fields of microbiology, mycology, parasitology and virology.
Methods: Documents published during the period of 1990 to 2000 compiled on the MEDLINE database >(WEBSPIRS 4.2) were retrieved using the following search terms ("Spain" OR "Espana") AND ("microb*" OR "virol*" OR "parasit*" OR "bacter*" OR "micol*" OR "mycol*" OR "retrovirus*) in the field, author's address.
Results: A total of 5259 documents were retrieved. Over the period studied, the number of documents published annually increased two-fold, from 256 documents in 1990 to 512 in 2002 (r = 0.92; p < 0.001), particularly those in foreign journals, from 175 to 447 documents (r = 0.95; p < 0.001). 50.9% of the documents came from universities, 35.8% from hospitals, 5.4% from the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) (5.4%), and 5.3% from the Instituto de Salud Carlos III. The CSIC centers (r 2 = 0.90), and universities (r 2 = 0.88) showed the highest rate of growth in the number of publications. The University of Barcelona (5.3%) had the largest number of publications among teaching institutions and Hospital Ramón y Cajal (2.9%) was the first among hospitals. The Autonomous Communities of Madrid (29.2%) and Catalonia (17.5%) showed the highest scientific production. The mean expected impact factor for all the published documents was 2.340. The expected impact factor grew from 1.977 in 1990 to 2.507 en 2002 (r 2 = 0.81).
Conclusion: The published scientific production of Spanish researchers and the repercussion of these studies in the field of microbiology and related areas increased during the period of 1990 to 2002, particularly in the number of articles published in foreign journals. The Universities are the most productive institutions in this field.