Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Labatt Family School of Nursing, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada.
BMJ Open. 2020 Oct 21;10(10):e040950. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2020-040950.
In comparison to quantitative research, the impact of qualitative articles in the medical literature has been questioned by the BMJ; to explore this, we compared the impact of quantitative and qualitative articles published in BMJ.
Cross-sectional survey.
Articles published in the BMJ between 2007 and 2017.
Bibliometric and altmetric measures of research impact were collected using Web of Science, Google Scholar, Scopus, Plum Analytics and ProQuest Altmetric. Bibliometric measures consisted of citation numbers, field weighted citation impact and citation percentile. Altmetric measures consisted of article usage, captures, mentions, readers, altmetric attention score and score percentile. Scores were compared using the Wilcoxon Rank-sum test.
We screened a total of 7777 articles and identified 42 qualitative articles. Each qualitative article was matched to 3 quantitative articles published during the same year (126 quantitative articles). Citation numbers were not statistically different between the two research types; the median number of citations (google scholar) per quantitative article was 62 (IQR 38-111) versus 58 (IQR 36-85) per qualitative article (p=0.47). Using Plum Analytics, qualitative articles were found to have a significantly higher usage, with a median of 984 (IQR 581-1351) versus 379 (IQR 177-763) for quantitative (p<0.001). The Altmetric Attention Score was higher for quantitative articles at 16 (IQR 7-37) versus qualitative articles at 9 (IQR 5-23, p=0.05), as was the Altmetric Score percentile 93 (IQR 87-96) versus 88 (IQR 76-95; p=0.02).
Qualitative and quantitative articles published in the BMJ between 2007 and 2017 both have a high impact. No article type was consistently superior in terms of bibliometric or altmetric measures, suggesting that type of article is not the major driver of impact.
与定量研究相比，《英国医学杂志》（BMJ）曾对定性文章的影响提出质疑；为了探讨这一点，我们比较了发表在 BMJ 上的定量和定性文章的影响。
横断面调查。
2007 年至 2017 年期间发表在 BMJ 上的文章。
使用 Web of Science、Google Scholar、Scopus、Plum Analytics 和 ProQuest Altmetric 收集研究影响的文献计量和替代计量措施。文献计量措施包括引文数量、领域加权引文影响和引文百分位。替代计量措施包括文章使用量、收录、提及、读者、替代计量关注分数和分数百分位。使用 Wilcoxon 秩和检验比较分数。
我们总共筛选了 7777 篇文章，确定了 42 篇定性文章。每篇定性文章都与同年发表的 3 篇定量文章相匹配（126 篇定量文章）。两种研究类型的引文数量没有统计学差异；每篇定量文章的引文中位数（谷歌学者）为 62（IQR 38-111），而每篇定性文章为 58（IQR 36-85）（p=0.47）。使用 Plum Analytics，定性文章的使用量明显更高，中位数为 984（IQR 581-1351），而定量文章为 379（IQR 177-763）（p<0.001）。定量文章的替代计量关注分数为 16（IQR 7-37），定性文章为 9（IQR 5-23，p=0.05），替代计量分数百分位为 93（IQR 87-96），定性文章为 88（IQR 76-95；p=0.02）。
2007 年至 2017 年期间发表在 BMJ 上的定性和定量文章都具有较高的影响力。在文献计量学或替代计量学指标方面，没有一种文章类型具有明显优势，这表明文章类型不是影响的主要驱动因素。
