Nursing education in Slovenia and its impact on nurses publishing in their professional journal.

The paper describes development of nursing education in Slovenia (from Associate Degree to Diploma level, with BSN programme of brief duration) and discusses its impact on structure and contents of the Journal of the Slovenian Nursing Association (JSNA). Extensive bibliometric analysis was performed on all scientific and technical papers published in the JSNA between 1976 and 2001. Statistical analyses were carried out to study characteristics and inter-relations of authorship, article type, cited references and subject classification. A positive impact of improved and extended education of nurses on quantity and quality of their publications was confirmed. Nevertheless, further steps in terms of education and research are needed fully to establish nursing as an independent profession in Slovenia, and there is still much room for improving the standard of the articles in the JSNA.