Relationship between internal medicine journals' activity on social networks and the citations they receive

Abstract

Background and objectives: Social networks are a means for disseminating scientific information. Alternative metrics assessing the impact of scientific publications on social networks have been created. Our study aims to assess the correlation between the activity of internal medicine journals on social networks and traditional metrics based on citations.

Methods: Internal medicine journals were identified in the SCImago-Scopus database and information on traditional impact metrics was extracted. In addition, alternative metrics of activity were determined for Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram. The correlation was assessed through Spearman's correlation coefficient.

Results: Of 134 Internal Medicine journals, 17 had a presence on the social networks evaluated. The SJR index was higher in journals with a presence on social networks vs. those without (59 vs. 18, p < .0001). The overall correlation between the SJR index and the number of followers/year was very strong for Facebook (Spearman's correlation coefficient 0.95, p < .05) and strong for Twitter (Spearman's correlation coefficient 0.54 p < .05).

Conclusions: Our study suggests that there is a very strong correlation between social network activity metrics (mainly Facebook and Twitter) compared to traditional metrics based on the number of citations of internal medicine journals.

Keywords: Facebook; Internal medicine; Medicina interna; Redes sociales; Social networks; Twitter.