Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
Submitting an epistemological critique of nursing paradigms to Advances in Nursing Science (ANS).
- Is an instance
Evaluating ANS bibliometric indicators (JIF 1.7, 5-year JIF 2.2) under DORA responsible assessment guidelines.
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
Evaluating the personal research quality of a nurse scientist solely based on ANS's 1.7 Journal Impact Factor.
- Not an instance
Confusing Advances in Nursing Science (Wolters Kluwer) with Nursing Science Quarterly (SAGE).
Editorial commentary
Quick answer: Advances in Nursing Science (ANS) holds a Journal Impact Factor (JIF) of 1.7 according to Clarivate’s Journal Citation Reports (JCR), with a 5-year Impact Factor of 2.2. Published quarterly by Wolters Kluwer / Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, the journal ranks in Quartile 3 (approximately 106 of 194 titles) in the JCR Nursing category. As an epistemological and theoretical journal founded in 1978, its citation metrics reflect specialized scholarly discourse rather than high-volume clinical trials.
Advances in Nursing Science (ANS) is a peer-reviewed quarterly academic journal dedicated to the development, critique, and evolution of theory and philosophy in nursing science. Founded in 1978 by Editor Emerita Peggy L. Chinn and currently led by Editor-in-Chief Eun-Ok Im, ANS serves as a primary scholarly venue for conceptual analysis, epistemological debates, emancipatory inquiry, and structural health equity frameworks.
What the number actually measures
The Journal Impact Factor is a journal-level citation ratio published annually by Clarivate in the Journal Citation Reports. The two-year metric is calculated by taking the total citations received in a given year to articles and reviews published by the journal during the preceding two years, divided by the total number of citable items published in that same two-year window.
Because ANS publishes targeted, theoretical contributions across four issues per year, its citable volume is deliberately modest compared to multidisciplinary medical mega-journals. Its 5-year Impact Factor (2.2) provides a broader window that accounts for the extended citation life cycle characteristic of philosophical and theoretical scholarship, where papers accumulate influence over years rather than immediately upon publication.
What CASRAI verified at source
Bibliographic and bibliometric attributes confirmed directly against official publisher and index records on 2026-11-07 include:
- Publisher: Wolters Kluwer Health / Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW).
- ISSN: Print ISSN 0161-9268; Online ISSN 1550-5014.
- National Library of Medicine (NLM) ID: 7809941 (indexed in MEDLINE/PubMed from Volume 1, 1978).
- Bibliographic Indexing: Clarivate Web of Science (SCIE/SSCI), PubMed/MEDLINE, CINAHL, and Scopus.
- Clarivate JCR Metrics: 2-year Journal Impact Factor: 1.7; 5-year Impact Factor: 2.2; JCR Category: Nursing (Quartile 3).
- Elsevier Scopus Metric: CiteScore: 3.0 (four-year calculation window).
Distinction from Nursing Science Quarterly
Researchers frequently contrast ANS with Nursing Science Quarterly (NSQ). While both focus on theoretical nursing scholarship, they represent distinct traditions:
- Advances in Nursing Science (ANS): Published by Wolters Kluwer since 1978; emphasizes diverse philosophical orientations, emancipatory research, intersectionality, critical social theory, and methodological frameworks across the whole discipline.
- Nursing Science Quarterly (NSQ): Published by SAGE Publications since 1988 (founded by Rosemarie Rizzo Parse); focuses predominantly on Parse’s humanbecoming paradigm and specific nursing school-of-thought theory development.
Responsible assessment and citation context
Journal-level metrics like the JIF provide institutional librarians with portfolio collection data, but they do not measure the scientific rigor or individual impact of a specific article. CASRAI aligns with the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) and the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (detailed in our comparison of DORA vs CoARA), which advise universities, grant panels, and promotion committees against using journal impact factors as surrogate measures for the quality of individual research papers or faculty contributions.
Related terms
- Nursing Science — the foundational discipline framework.
- Journal Impact Factor (JIF) — the general Clarivate citation ratio.
- Journal Citation Reports (JCR) — the annual source publication for JIF rankings.
- CiteScore — Scopus’s alternative four-year journal citation metric.
- CINAHL Search Strategy — database indexing and search methodology for nursing literature.
- CINAHL vs PubMed — comparative database strengths for allied health research.
- DORA — declaration on responsible research assessment.
Sources
- Wolters Kluwer / Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Advances in Nursing Science Journal Overview and Metrics. https://journals.lww.com/ansjournal. Read 2026-11-07.
- National Library of Medicine. NLM Catalog: Advances in Nursing Science (NLM ID 7809941). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/7809941. Read 2026-11-07.
- Clarivate. Journal Citation Reports (JCR): Advances in Nursing Science. Web of Science Group. Read 2026-11-07.
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
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