Ladeiras-Lopes Ricardo, Clarke Sarah, Vidal-Perez Rafael, Alexander Michael, Lüscher Thomas F
Cardiology Department, Gaia/Espinho Hospital Centre and Cardiovascular Research Centre, Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto, Rua Conceicao Fernandes, 4434-502 Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal.
Cardiovascular Research Centre, Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto, Alameda Professor Hernâni Monteiro, 4200-319 Porto, Portugal.
Eur Heart J. 2020 Sep 7;41(34):3222-3225. doi: 10.1093/eurheartj/ehaa211.
The association between the dissemination of scientific articles on Twitter and online visibility (including Altmetric score) is still controversial and the impact on citation rates has never been addressed for cardiovascular medicine journals.
The ESC Journals Study randomized 696 papers published in the ESC Journals family (March 2018-May 2019) for promotion on Twitter or to a control arm (with no active tweeting from ESC channels) and aimed to assess if Twitter promotion was associated with an increase in citation rate (primary endpoint) and Altmetric score. This is a preliminary analysis of 536 articles (77% of total) published until December 2018 (therefore, papers published at least 6 months before collecting citation and Altmetrics data). In the analysis of the primary endpoint, Twitter promotion of articles was associated with a 1.43 (95% confidence interval 1.29-1.58) higher rate of citations, and this effect was independent of the type of article. Both Altmetric score and number of users tweeting were positively associated with the number of citations in both arms, with evidence of a stronger association (interaction) in the Twitter arm.
Therefore, a social media strategy of Twitter promotion for cardiovascular medicine papers seems to be associated with increased online visibility and higher number of citations. The final analysis will include 696 papers and 2-year scientific citation rate and is estimated to be concluded in March 2021.
科学文章在推特上的传播与网络可见性（包括Altmetric评分）之间的关联仍存在争议，且心血管医学期刊对其对引用率的影响从未有过研究。
欧洲心脏病学会（ESC）期刊研究将ESC期刊家族在2018年3月至2019年5月发表的696篇论文随机分为在推特上推广组或对照组（ESC渠道不进行主动推文），旨在评估推特推广是否与引用率增加（主要终点）和Altmetric评分相关。这是对截至2018年12月发表的536篇文章（占总数的77%）的初步分析（因此，这些论文在收集引用和Altmetrics数据前至少已发表6个月）。在主要终点分析中，文章的推特推广与高出1.43倍（95%置信区间1.29 - 1.58）的引用率相关，且这种效应与文章类型无关。在两组中，Altmetric评分和推文用户数量均与引用次数呈正相关，且在推特推广组中存在更强的关联（交互作用）证据。
因此，心血管医学论文的推特推广社交媒体策略似乎与网络可见性增加和更高的引用次数相关。最终分析将纳入696篇论文和两年的科学引用率，预计于2021年3月完成。
