In the search to secure funding, researchers must now respond to requests by governments and non-government organisations about how to measure the societal and professional impact of their research. While case studies and reports of interventions may provide grounds for qualitative evaluation, bibliometric methodology is emerging as an important quantitative supplement to these evaluations. 

  In clinical practice, treatment recommendations and clinical guidelines provide traces of clinical and professional practice that can be used to identify and measure research impact. To understand how these traces emerge the research reported here explores documents issued by the three main Swedish agencies who produce recommendations for clinical practice. In particular it examines the cited references within the documents to explore size distribution, reference age, and geographical aspects, in addition to the similarities of the cited reference structure between the producers of the documents.

  The overall goal of this ongoing project is to gain insights into citation practice and distribution of publications in professional practice to provide grounds for developing indicators of clinical impact. Future applications with regard to the broader area of professional impact based on references found in the literature of a wide range of professions, e.g. the health sector, social welfare, engineering and the environmental realm are considered.