Can the impact factor measure the quality of research?

International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-being (QHW) strives hard to maintain high scientific quality. As soon as a manuscript is submitted to the journal, the Chief Editor reads it to see: (i) whether it is within the scope of the journal and (ii) if it is scientifically and methodologically of such quality that it is worth asking at least two peers for a rigorous review. If the answer to both questions is ''yes'', then the Co-editor who has most experience in the particular research area of the study will take care of the continued review process. Beyond the Chief Editor, QHW at present has three Co-editors with extensive knowledge in the field of health and well-being and long research experience. In addition, the journal has an impressive international Editorial board as well as a long and ever-increasing list of peer-reviewers. These persons are all renowned researchers in different research areas as well as experts of different qualitative research approaches. At least two, most often three, independent reviewers are requested to review each manuscript. The review process is ''double blind''*that is, the author and the reviewers are unknown to each other*and we are constantly striving to make the process as short and smooth as possible. Based on a balanced evaluation of the reviewers' comments, the editorial decision will be either: (i) acceptance; (ii) acceptance after revision; (iii) revision and resubmission; (iv) rejection; or (v) submission elsewhere. At present, the rejection rate is close to 50%. QHW is accepted for indexing with the Science Citation Index through Web of Science and has also received its first official Impact Factor (for 2011). Also, recently the journal was accepted for indexing in MEDLINE. This, along with indexing with PubMed, Scopus, and PsychInfo, among others, and archiving in PubMed Central, CLOCKSS, and Portico are obvious signs of the journal's generally recognized high quality. An Impact Factor is based on citations to articles in the journal during the previous 2 years. In this way, QHW's Impact Factor for 2011 of 0.481 is based on citations to articles published in the journal during 2009 and 2010. By calculating and dividing two measures, which can be named A and B, the Impact Factor is thus paradoxically a quantitative way of expressing a journal's quality:. Measure A is the number of times that articles published in a certain journal during a certain period (in this case …