Comparative analysis between impact factor and h-index for pharmacology and psychiatry journals

Using strictly the same parameters (identical two publication years (2004–2005) and identical one-year citation window (2006)), IF 2006 was compared with h-index 2006 for two samples of “Pharmacology and Pharmacy” and “Psychiatry” journals computed from the ISI Web of Science. For the two samples, the IF and the h-index rankings of the journals are very different. The correlation coefficient between the IF and the h-index is high for Psychiatry but lower for Pharmacology. The linearity test performed between the h-index and $$ \,IF^{{{\frac{\alpha }{\alpha \, + 1}}}} .\,n\,^{{{\frac{1}{\alpha \, + 1}}}} $$ showed the great sensitivity of the model compared with α. The IF and h-index can be completely complementary when evaluating journals of the same scientific discipline.