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Twitter Journal Club Impact on Engagement Metrics of the Neurocritical Care Journal

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Abstract

Background

Twitter journal clubs are a modern way of highlighting articles published in a scientific journal. The Neurocritical Care journal (NCC) initiated a bimonthly, Twitter-based, online journal club in 2015 to increase the outreach of its published articles. We hypothesize that articles included in the Neurocritical Care Society Twitter Journal Club (NCSTJC) had greater engagement than other articles published during the same time period. We also investigated the relationship between number of citations and Altmetric score to assess whether the enhanced online activity resulted in higher citations.

Methods

We gathered data in August 2020 on engagement metrics (number of downloads, Altmetric score, relative citation ratio, and number of citations) of all articles published in NCC between 2015 and 2018. Articles were analyzed into two groups: one featured in NCSTJC and the rest that were not (non-NCSTJC1), and the other comprised those that were not in NCSTJC but published under a similar category of articles as NCSTJC (non-NCSTJC2). Results were analyzed using descriptive statistics, and summary measures were used to report the spread. The groups were compared by using the Wilcoxon rank sum test, given that the data were not normally distributed. Spearman’s rank correlation was used to assess correlation between Altmetric score and citations for the articles in the NCSTJC and non-NCSTJC groups. For comparison, the top ten cited articles in NCC were analyzed for similar correlations.

Results

Between 2015 and 2018, NCC published 529 articles, 24 of which were included in the Twitter journal club. A total of 406 articles were published in the same category as the category of articles selected for NCSTJC. The articles discussed as a part of NCSTJC had a statistically significant trend toward a higher number of downloads, Altmetric score, relative citation ratio, and number of citations than rest of the articles published in the journal during the same time period and the rest of the articles published in same categories. Three NCSTJC articles were among the ten most-cited articles published by NCC between 2015 and 2018. We did not find a correlation between Altmetric scores and number of citations in the NCSTJC or non-NCSTJC1 or non-NCSTJC2 group, but there was a strong correlation between these two variables in high performing articles when the top ten cited articles were analyzed.

Conclusions

Scientific journals are evolving their social media strategies in attempt to increase the outreach of their articles to the medical community. Platforms such as Twitter journal clubs can enhance such engagement. The long-term influence of such strategies on the impact factor of a medical journal and traditional engagement metrics, such as citations, calls for further research.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the statistical assistance of the Wake Forest Clinical and Translational Science Institute, which is supported by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institutes of Health, through Grant Award Number UL1TR001420.

Funding

No funding source was reported.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurology, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston Salem, NC, USA

    Aarti Sarwal

  2. Department of Neurology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA

    Masoom Desai

  3. Department of Neurology, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, New York, NY, USA

    Pallavi Juneja

  4. Department of Biostatistical Sciences, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston Salem, NC, USA

    Joni K. Evans

  5. Department of Neurosurgery, University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, TX, USA

    Abhay Kumar

  6. Department of Neurology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA

    Eelco Wijdicks

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  1. Aarti Sarwal
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Contributions

AS made substantial contributions to conception and design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data. She contributed to drafting the article and revising it critically for important intellectual content. MD contributed to drafting the article and revising it critically for important intellectual content. PJ contributed to drafting the article and revising it critically for important intellectual content. JKE made substantial contributions to data analysis. AK Jha was the chair of the Communication Committee, Neurocritical Care Society, at the initiation of Neurocritical Care Society Twitter Journal Club. EW contributed to drafting the article and revising it critically for important intellectual content. The final manuscript was approved by all authors.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Aarti Sarwal.

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Conflict of interest

Aarti Sarwal is the Social Media Editor of Critical Care Medicine and Neurocritical Care. Masoom Desai is the Social Media Ambassador for the Neurocritical care journal. Abhay Kumar Jha was the chair of the Communication Committee, Neurocritical Care Society, at the initiation of Neurocritical Care Society Twitter Journal Club. Eelco Wijdicks is the founding Editor-in-Chief of the Neurocritical Care Journal. The remaining authors have no conflicts to disclose.

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This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors. We followed adherence to ethical guidelines.

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Sarwal, A., Desai, M., Juneja, P. et al. Twitter Journal Club Impact on Engagement Metrics of the Neurocritical Care Journal. Neurocrit Care 37, 129–139 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12028-022-01458-7

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