Association Between Twitter Reception at a National Urology Conference and Future Publication Status

Abstract

Background: Social media is an increasingly popular means to disseminate medical research. However, it is unknown whether the extent to which content is shared mirrors conventional measures of scientific merit or impact.

Objective: To examine whether Twitter activity (as measured by the number of "likes" and "retweets" [RTs]) relating to original research presented at a national urology meeting was associated with subsequent publication status and journal impact factor (IF).

Design, setting, and participants: We retrospectively reviewed Twitter data obtained through the Keyhole archiving platform using the hashtag "#aua15" from May 1 through June 1, 2015 reflecting the hashtag of the American Urological Association (AUA) meeting.

Outcome measurements and statistical analysis: We analyzed all posts containing keywords related to research studies. Among posts reporting on newly presented studies with discernable attribution, we evaluated subsequent publication status within 45 mo, including journal IF. We compared social media reception (number of likes/RTs) by publication status, and assessed the relationship between social media reception and subsequent journal IF using Pearson's correlation.

Results and limitations: A total of 15 303 posts were associated with #aua15 between May 1 and June 1, 2015, which reached 2 263 438 users. The median number of likes/RTs was 2 (interquartile range 1-3). We analyzed all posts receiving at least one like/RT (n = 2964) for text content related to research and identified 496 associated with new scientific studies presented at the meeting. Forty-five months following the AUA meeting, 96 studies were identifiable on PubMed (19.4%). Research with more likes/RTs at the AUA meeting were more likely to be subsequently published (p = 0.001). Among published studies, there was a modest, positive correlation between the number of likes/RTs and publication journal IF (r² = 0.36).

Conclusions: Measures of social media engagement with data presented at a national medical meeting were positively correlated with subsequent publication and journal IF after presentation.

Patient summary: New urological research that was shared more often at a national meeting was more likely to be published in journals that are more highly cited.

Keywords: Impact factor; Social media; Twitter.