What did the study look at?
Social media has become an important way of spreading research among health professionals. The online attention an article receives can be measured with the Altmetric Attention Score, which weights mentions in sources such as news outlets, blogs, Twitter and Facebook.
Many orthopaedic journals now publish companion journals that describe surgical techniques with videos and illustrations. The authors examined whether these technique articles attract more social media attention than original research articles on the same subject, and whether their citation counts differ. Their starting hypothesis was that technique articles would have a higher average score.
How was it done?
This was a bibliometric (publication analysis) study; no patient data were used. Technique articles published from August 2019 to July 2020 in Arthroscopy Techniques and JBJS Essential Surgical Techniques were matched by topic, in a 4:1 ratio, with original research articles in Arthroscopy, Sports Medicine, and Rehabilitation and JBJS Open Access. All of the selected journals were open access.
- The primary outcome was the Altmetric Attention Score; citations and social media metrics were also examined.
- Data were collected in July 2021, with citations taken from the Dimensions database.
- Factors such as the number of authors and institutions and the continent of origin were accounted for with multivariable analysis.
What did it find?
- In total, 285 articles were analysed: 228 technique articles (80.0%) and 57 original research articles (20.0%).
- The mean Altmetric score was 3.63 ± 10.08 for technique articles and 1.30 ± 3.98 for original research, a significant difference (P = .016).
- After accounting for other factors, being a technique article was associated with an additional mean increase of 2.91 points in the score.
- Articles from North America scored on average 3.00 points higher than those from other continents.
- Mean citation counts did not differ significantly between the groups (P = .73), although citation count and Altmetric score were significantly associated.
- Original research articles had on average more references, authors and institutions.
The authors' conclusion
The authors conclude that technique articles achieved significantly higher Altmetric scores and social media attention than open-access original research articles on similar topics. They suggest that an accompanying surgical technique video or illustrations may be one way to increase a study's visibility on social media. However, they point out that technique articles often lack long-term follow-up, patient outcome data and control groups, and represent a low level of evidence; clinicians should review the accompanying articles and supporting original research as a primary source before changing their practice.
Limitations
- Only articles from 4 orthopaedic journals under 2 editorial groups were studied, so the findings may not apply to the wider orthopaedic literature.
- The short time frame did not allow longer-term social media attention and citations to be assessed.
- Selecting original research articles by matching them to technique articles by topic may have introduced bias.
- Only a subset of publication characteristics was analysed.
Reference
Vadhera AS, Lee JS, Veloso IL, Singh H, Trasolini NA, Kunze KN, Gürsoy S, Geeslin AG, Verma NN, Chahla J. (2022). Technique Articles Are More Effective at Increasing Social Media Attention in Comparison With Original Research Articles: An Altmetrics-Based Analysis. Arthroscopy, Sports Medicine, and Rehabilitation, 4(3), e989-e995. Licence: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
DOI: 10.1016/j.asmr.2022.02.002
Free full text: PubMed Central (PMC9210375)
This article summarises a published scientific paper for general information; it does not replace an examination or a personal medical assessment. Please consult your doctor about your symptoms.
