#OrthoTwitter: Relationship Between Author Twitter Utilization and Academic Impact in Orthopaedic Surgery

Abstract

Background #OrthoTwitter has evolved to disseminate findings and engage the public. However, the academic impact of Twitter utilization in orthopaedic surgery is unknown. Questions/purposes The purpose of the study was to evaluate relationships between the author and manuscript Twitter activity and citations. Methods Manuscripts in 17 orthopaedic journals from 2018 were identified. Citations, online mentions, impact factors, and subspecialties were obtained. H-index and Twitter account details for authors were obtained for a subset of manuscripts. Relationships between Twitter activity and citations were evaluated. Results 2,473/4,224 (58.5%) manuscripts were mentioned on Twitter (n=29,958 mentions), with Twitter manuscripts cited more frequently (median 10 vs. 7, p<0.0001). Twitter mentions, impact factors, non-open-access status, and subspecialties were associated with citation counts. Articles mentioned in 10, 100, and 1,000 Tweets were observed to have a 1.1-fold, 1.7-fold, and 245-fold increase in citations. In author-level analyses, 156 (20.0%) first and 216 (27.7%) senior authors had Twitter accounts. Citation count was associated with increasing senior author H-index (β _est=0.13, p<0.05), Twitter mentions (β _est=0.0043, p<0.0001), impact factors (β _est=0.13, p<0.0001), and having a first (β _est=0.20, p<0.05) or senior author (β _est=0.17, p<0.05) on Twitter. Articles published in arthroplasty (β _est=0.49, p<0.05), general interest (β _est=0.55, p<0.01), sports (β _est=0.63, p<0.01), and non-open access journals (β _est=0.41, p<0.001) were cited more. H-index correlated with followers for first (rho=0.31, p<0.0001) and senior authors (rho=0.44, p<0.0001). Conclusion Author Twitter utilization is independently associated with manuscript citations. Authors should be aware of the potential association between social media utilization and traditional academic impact. Understanding the relationship between social media utilization and academic impact is necessary to effectively disseminate research.

Keywords: author-level bibliometrics; bibliometric analyis; bibliometric analyses; ortho; ortho surgery; orthopaedic research; orthopaedics; orthopaedics surgery; orthotwitter; twitter.

Figure 1. Manuscript citations (A), Twitter mentions (B), and Altmetric Attention Score (C) by subspecialty

Data are presented as the natural logs of one plus citation count, Twitter mentions, and AAS respectively, in order to avoid taking the log of zero. Violin plots are scaled according to a Gaussian density approximation. Overlying boxplots depict median and interquartile range.

Figure 2. Percentage of articles having at least one of first or senior author with a Twitter account

Overall Kruskal Wallis p-value is <0.0001.

Figure 3. Manuscript citations by author Twitter presence

Data are presented as the natural log of one plus citation count in order to avoid taking the log of zero. Violin plots are scaled according to a Gaussian density approximation. Overlying boxplots depict median and interquartile range.

Figure 4. Relationship between Twitter followers and H-index among first and senior authors

(A) The graph shows a scatterplot of H-index vs Twitter followers for first authors. (B) The graph shows a scatterplot of H-index vs Twitter followers for senior authors. (C) This chart represents the ratio of Twitter followers to H-index for manuscript authors by subspecialty. Violin plots are scaled according to a gaussian density approximation. Overlying boxplots represent median and interquartile range.