Rothman Orthopaedic Institute at Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA.
Wake Forest Baptist Health, Winston-Salem, NC.
J Arthroplasty. 2021 Aug;36(8):3010-3014. doi: 10.1016/j.arth.2021.04.006. Epub 2021 Apr 20.
Scientists, surgeons, and trainees are increasingly taking an active role on Twitter to find, disseminate, and exchange knowledge. The purpose of this study was to determine if peer-reviewed journal articles shared on Twitter using visual abstracts (VAs) improve user engagement compared with plain-text tweets.
A two-arm randomized controlled trial with crossover was performed. Manuscripts from the Journal of Arthroplasty were allocated to one of two arms and disseminated via the journal Twitter account (@JArthroplasty) as either a text-based tweet or a VA. The primary outcome was online engagement (a composite of retweets, replies, and likes) at 7 and 30 days after posting. Univariate analysis for nonparametric and parametric data was performed using Mann-Whitney test or Student t-tests, respectively; alpha was set at 0.05.
20 in-press manuscripts were randomized to standard tweets (10) or VAs (10) the same day of online publication. The mean number of engagements was higher in the VA group at seven (412 ± 216 vs 195 ± 133; P = .016) and 30 days (495 ± 204 vs 244 ± 162; P = .007). After the crossover, similar results were reported. Overall, VAs attracted a significantly greater number of engagements than standard tweets. Most engagement for both plain-text tweets and VAs occurred shortly after the tweet is posted.
Online, public engagement with orthopedic research is generally low. However, when VAs are used to communicate research through social media outlets such as Twitter, the overall research engagement significantly increases compared with plain-text tweets.
科学家、外科医生和学员越来越多地在 Twitter 上积极参与寻找、传播和交流知识。本研究的目的是确定使用视觉摘要（VA）在 Twitter 上分享的同行评审期刊文章是否与纯文本推文相比能提高用户参与度。
采用双臂随机对照交叉试验设计。将《关节置换杂志》（Journal of Arthroplasty）的手稿分配到两个臂中的一个，并通过期刊的 Twitter 账户（@JArthroplasty）以文本推文或 VA 的形式发布。主要结局指标是发布后 7 天和 30 天的在线参与度（转推、回复和点赞的综合指标）。非参数和参数数据的单变量分析分别使用 Mann-Whitney 检验或学生 t 检验进行；alpha 值设为 0.05。
20 篇即将在线发表的手稿在同一天与在线发表的标准推文（10 篇）或 VA（10 篇）进行随机分组。在第 7 天（412 ± 216 比 195 ± 133；P =.016）和第 30 天（495 ± 204 比 244 ± 162；P =.007），VA 组的平均参与度更高。在交叉后，报告了类似的结果。总体而言，VA 比标准推文吸引了更多的参与度。两种纯文本推文和 VA 的大部分参与度都发生在推文发布后不久。
在线上，公众对骨科研究的参与度普遍较低。然而，当使用 VA 通过 Twitter 等社交媒体渠道来传播研究时，与纯文本推文相比，整体研究参与度显著增加。
