Citation analysis of graduate Dental thesis references: Before and after an intervention

Background: Introduction of Iranian National Medical Digital Library (INLM) was a huge investment during several years ago. The aim of this study was to discover the effectiveness of this scientific intervention by examination of citation pattern among graduate dental thesis during before and after of INLM accessibility. Methods: This analytical study was conducted among all of graduate dental thesis at Babol University of Medical Sciences (during 2007-2010) using citation analysis. The data were collected by means of a tailor-made data collection sheet and analyzed using descriptive statistical indexes and ANOVA test. Results: The outcome extracted of 111 theses and 5334 citations showed that journals were the most frequent format (80%) and there were not any statistical significant difference between numbers of cited references over the four years. Furthermore, there was not any positive effect on age of cited references. Conclusions: Overall, according to limited effect on number, age and types of cited references during before and after of INLM access, it can be concluded that INLM had negligible effect on citation pattern and more research in this regard is necessary.