Objectives: Determine the correlation between Altmetric score and citation number for publications in high-impact dermatology journals and examine the characteristics of these articles.
Materials and methods: Four high-impact dermatology journals were examined for the top 10% of articles as ranked by Altmetric score. Spearman's Rank correlation coefficient was performed on log-transformed Altmetric scores and citation numbers. Dimensions and Altmetric were used to determine journal characteristics.
Results: Among the 165 articles analyzed, Altmetric score does not correlate with citation number (rs = 0.0047 and ρ = .953) or type of observational study. The highest performing journal articles represented a variety of journal types and topics.
Conclusions: Online attention does not necessarily correspond with dissemination through traditional citation. While Altmetric scores convey much information about online dissemination, both Altmetric scores and citation numbers should be taken into account when evaluating a publication's impact.
Keywords: Altmetric; citation number; publication.