Using social media to disseminate hand surgery research boosts long-term citations.

Abstract

Social media (SoMe) is increasingly used for research promotion and dissemination. Classic bibliometrics measure long-term measures of research impact, such as citation counts. Altmetrics are newer real-time measures of activity on multiple SoMe platforms (e.g. X, Facebook) capturing the consumption, reach and impact of scientific outputs. Promotion via SoMe has short-term positive impacts on citations but the long-term impact remains unknown. Altmetrics and citation rates were collected from Altmetric Explorer 6 years post-publication for 624 articles published in 2017 across six hand surgery journals (<i>Journal of Hand Surgery, Journal of Hand Surgery: European Volume</i>, <i>Journal of Hand Surgery: Asian-Pacific Volume</i>, <i>Journal of Plastic Surgery and Hand Surgery</i>, <i>Techniques in Hand and Upper Extremity Surgery</i> and <i>HAND</i>). Negative binomial regression was used to estimate the relationships between citation counts and predictor variables. Incident rate ratios were reported as 95% confidence intervals (CI). SoMe mentions had a long-term positive impact on citations, whereby mentions in 2017 were independently associated with a 2% higher citation rate 6 years later (CI 1-3%). Evidence synthesis studies had at least eight more citations than other types of articles (<i>p</i> < 0.001), and articles published in the <i>Journal of Hand Surgery</i> had more citations than those in other hand surgery journals (<i>p</i> < 0.001). Using SoMe to advertise hand surgery literature is associated with long-term gains in citations. Continued research into the impact of SoMe on bibliometrics will help to ensure the academic ecosphere is responsive to evolving digital trends. IV (Cross-sectional study).