Twitter Gynecologic Surgery Journal Club: Impact on Citation Scores and Social Media Attention

Study Objective: To study the impact of a Twitter-based gynecologic surgery journal club of articles published in the Jour-nal of Minimally Invasive Gynecology (JMIG) on their social media attention and citation scores. Design: A cross-sectional study. Setting: N/A. Patients: N/A. Interventions: Comparison of citation and social media attention scores was conducted for all articles presented in the JMIG Twitter Journal Club (#JMIGjc), a monthly scientific discussion on Twitter of JMIG selected articles, between March 2018 and September 2021 (group A), with 2 matched control groups of other JMIG articles: group B, articles mentioned on social media but not promoted in any JMIG social media account, and group C, articles with no social media mentions and not presented in #JMIGjc. Matching was performed for publication year, design, and topic in a 1:1:1 ratio. Citation metrics included number of citations per year (CPY) and relative citation ratio (RCR). Altmetric Attention Score (AAS) was used to measure social media attention. This score tracks research articles' online activity from different sources such as social media platforms, blogs, and websites. We further compared group A with all JMIG articles published during the same period (group D). Measurements and Main Results: Thirty-nine articles were presented in the #JMIGjc (group A) and were matched to 39 articles in groups B and C. Median AAS was higher in group A than groups B and C (10.00 vs 3.00 vs 0, respectively, p <.001). CPY and RCR were similar among groups. Median AAS was higher in group A than group D (10.00 vs 1.00, p <.001), as were median CPY and RCR (3.00 vs 1.67, p = .001; 1.37 vs 0.89, p = .001, respectively). Conclusion: Although citation metrics were similar among groups, #JMIGjc articles had higher social media attention met-rics than matched controls. Compared with all publications within the same journal, #JMIGjc articles resulted in higher cita-tion metrics. Journal of Minimally Invasive Gynecology (2023) 30, 635-641. (c) 2023 AAGL. All rights reserved.