Association of hybrid versus gold open-access publishing models of medical journals with their impact

<ns5:p> Background Hybrid and gold open-access (OA) are common publishing models. The latter requires fees to allow full-text visibility, whereas hybrid journals offer the option to publish gold OA or for free (subscription-based) where users with access can get the full-text. We evaluated the association of the publishing model and other factors with medical journals’ impact. Methods A sample of hybrid and gold OA medical journals indexed in Web of Science (WOS) and Scopus were included. The association of the publishing model and other factors with journals’ impact factor (IF), CiteScore, quartile, and number of citations was assessed. Results A total of 402 journals were included, 201 in each group. Hybrid and gold OA journals had a median age of 32 and 21 years, respectively ( <ns5:italic>P</ns5:italic> &lt;0.001). While gold OA journals had a slightly higher median IF (3.3 vs. 2.9; <ns5:italic>P</ns5:italic> =0.021), more hybrid journals had Q1 ranking in Scopus (57.7% vs. 43.8%; <ns5:italic>P</ns5:italic> =0.091). Publishing model, journal’s age, affiliation with organization/society, and EMBASE indexation were not associated with IF, CiteScore, number of citations, and WOS quartile ( <ns5:italic>P</ns5:italic> &gt;0.05). However, the gold OA model was not significantly associated with the Scopus Q1 ranking (OR, 0.52; 95% CI, 0.34-0.80), indicating that hybrid journals were more likely to have such a ranking. Conclusion These findings indicate that gold OA publishing does not result in higher impact or journal ranking. Therefore, authors can continue to submit their work to high impact hybrid journals if their interest is getting published in reputable prestigious journals regardless of their publishing model. </ns5:p>