An Analysis of Social Media Engagement and Conventional Bibliometrics for Articles Related to Distal Radius Fractures.

PURPOSE: As methods of research publication and promotion evolve, conventional bibliometric analyses may not provide a complete representation of audience engagement with peer-reviewed literature. Our purpose was to assess for correlations between social media engagement (Altmetric attention score [AAS]) and conventional article metrics (citation density [CD] and journal impact factor).

METHODS

Distal radius fracture (DRF) articles with the highest number of citations were identified using Web of Science and imported into Altmetric. The Altmetric database quantifies an article's online engagement and social media footprint to determine the AAS. We evaluated four metrics pertaining to the top 100 DRF articles: AAS, social media mentions (SMM), journal impact factor, and CD. Spearman's ρ was calculated between four pairings of these metrics. Confidence intervals corresponding to each Spearman's ρ were obtained via bootstrapping over 10,000 replications.

RESULTS

Of the 1,000 most frequently cited DRF articles, 333 (33%) generated an AAS. The AAS of the top 100 articles according to AAS ranged from 6 to 317 with a mean of 16. Articles were predominantly original research (71%), followed by reviews (21%). A moderately positive correlation (ρ = 0.55) between AAS and SMM was found. Citation density versus SMM and CD versus AAS were both found to be weakly positively correlated with a ρ of 0.34 and 0.30, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS

For the 1,000 most frequently cited articles related to DRFs, 33% generated an AAS. Citation density demonstrated weak, positive correlations with both SMM and AAS. In addition, we found a moderately positive correlation between AAS and SMM.

CLINICAL RELEVANCE: These data suggest that online and social media engagement is weakly correlated with increased citations for peer-reviewed articles related to DRFs. Although AAS cannot determine article quality or scientific merit, online dissemination of peer-reviewed research may be an effective means of promoting academic publications and increasing citations.