The Impact of Social Media on Otolaryngology Literature: Analyzing the Correlation Between Altmetrics and Citation Count

• Published in: OTO open : the official open access journal of the American Academy of Otolaryngology--Head and Neck Surgery Foundation 2024-10, Vol.8 (4), p.e70010-n/a
• Main Authors: Hussain, Salman, Almansouri, Abdullah, Almhanedi, Hamad
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: altmetrics; attention; citation count; education; Original Research; social media
• ISSN: 2473-974X; 2473-974X
• DOI: 10.1002/oto2.70010

Objective The altmetric attention score (AAS) is an alternative metric that tracks article sharing via online platforms, reflecting an article's online attention trend. The objective of this study was to analyze the impact of social media on Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery (OHNS) literature and analyze the correlation between AAS and citation count. Study Design and Setting A retrospective review of otolaryngology journal article citation data and Altmetric attention score. Methods The top 10 OHNS journals with highest impact factors were identified using the Journal Citation Reports (JCR). The number of citations in 2018 and 2019 were extracted from JCR and AAS was extracted from the altmetrics website. The primary outcome of this study was to establish whether a correlation between AAS and citation count exists, and whether AAS could serve as a valid alternative metric to assess the quality of individual articles. Results By analyzing data from 3729 articles, a weak statistically significant positive correlation was identified between AAS and citation count (r = 0.18, P