Measuring the social impact of dental research: An insight into the most influential articles on the Web.

OBJECTIVES

To identify the most discussed dental articles on the Web and to assess the association between the intensity of online attention, publication characteristics, and citations.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

An Altmetric Explorer search was conducted for articles published in the 91 dental journals included in 2015 InCites Journal Citation Report and mentioned online at all times. The 100 articles with the highest online attention, as measured by the "Altmetric Attention Score" (AAS), were screened for journal title, quartile of impact factor distribution (Q1-Q4), publication date, origin and affiliation of first author, article topic, type, and access. Citation counts were harvested from Scopus.

RESULTS

The top 100 articles presented a median AAS of 119 and were mostly discussed on news outlets, Twitter, and Mendeley. Forty-one articles were published in Q1 journals, 24 in Q2 journals, 32 in Q3 journals, and three in Q4 journals. AAS was significantly higher in articles of Q2 journals (median AAS = 398, range = 70-513) than in articles of Q1. A weak reverse correlation existed between AAS and time since publication (r = -.25, p < .05). No correlation was detected between AAS and other publication characteristics or number of citations.

CONCLUSIONS

Increased social impact of dental articles is not significantly associated with high citation rates.