Twitter gynecologic surgery journal club: impact on social media attention and citation scores

The impact of social media and internet platforms on attention to research and citation metrics in Minimally Invasive Gynecology is currently unknown. Altmetric Attention Score (AAS) and PlumX are alternative metrics that integrate research mentions on internet platforms and social media to assess the impact of research. We aimed to study the effect of implementing a Twitter-based gynecologic surgery journal club on social media attention and citation scores. We identified all articles that were presented in the Journal of Minimally Invasive Gynecology Journal Club (#JMIGjc), a monthly scientific discussion of selected articles on Twitter, from 3/2018 to 9/2021. We matched these articles to two control groups of similar articles based on year of publication, design, and topic in a 1:1:1 ratio. Group A was comprised of articles from #JMIGjc, Group B contained articles with no social media mentions and were not presented in #JMIGjc, and Group C consisted of articles with AAS that were not promoted in any JMIG platform. Number of citations per year (CPY), Relative Citation Ratio (RCR), AAS and PlumX scores were compared between groups. Pearson’s correlation coefficients were used to describe the relationship between AAS and PlumX scores and citation metrics. We further compared the #JMIGjc articles to all JMIG articles published during the same period (Group D). Thirty-nine articles were presented in the #JMIGjc and were matched to 39 articles in groups B and C. Articles’ characteristics including study design, topics, single/multicenter studies and country of origin were similar across groups. Median AAS was significantly higher in Group A compared to Groups B and C (10.00 vs. 0 vs. 3.00, respectively, p<0.001). CPY and RCR did not differ between groups (p=0.713 and p=0.689, respectively). Correlation coefficients between CPY vs. AAS and between CPY vs. PlumX social media were weak (0.044 and 0.099, respectively). Correlations between RCR vs. AAS and RCR vs. PlumX social media were low as well (0.075 and 0.093, respectively). Median AAS was higher in Group A compared to Group D (10.00 vs. 1.00, p<0.001). Similarly, median CPY and RCR were significantly higher in Group A compared to Group D (3.00 vs. 1.67, p=0.001; 1.37 vs. 0.89, p=0.001, respectively). Social media attention metrics were not associated with citation metrics and increased social media attention did not result in higher citation metrics when compared to matched controls. However, compared to all publications within a particular journal, articles presented through a social media-based journal club may result in higher citation metrics.Tabled 1Group A-JMIG Journal Club n=39Group B- no social media mentions n=39Group C-social media mentions, non-JMIG n=39p valueGroup D- all other articles n=1124p value*Altmetric Attention Score10.00 [7.00-14.00]0 [0-0]3.00 [2.00-10.00]<0.0011.00 [0-3.00]<0.001Citations per year3.00 [2.00-4.67]2.50 [1.25-4.00]2.75 [1.33-6.00]0.7131.67 [0.67-3.40]0.001Relative Citation Ratio**1.37 [1.04-2.46]1.34 [0.80-2.33]1.66 [0.83-2.68]0.6890.89 [0.37-1.77]0.001Data are median [IQR] ∗ Groups A vs. D ∗∗ n=31 per group. Open table in a new tab