Public Interest in Cognitive Impairment: An Analysis of the Top 50 Articles on Cognitive Impairment on Altmetric

Abstract

Background. As the average life expectancy continues to increase, interest in cognitive impairment is increasing. Nowadays, as social media expands its reach, academic research is spreading through social media, changing the way and speed by which research is propagated and also who consumes this content. Therefore, using Altmetric, a new web-based set of metrics that analyzes the impact of content on social media platforms, we investigated the characteristics of influential research articles on the topic of cognitive impairment in social media. Methods. An Altmetric Explorer search was performed on May 25, 2018, to extract the following information: (i) journal name, (ii) journal impact factor (IF), (iii) year of publication, (iv) article topic, (v) article type, and (vi) cognitive impairment subtype. Results. The journal “Neurology” was the most cited journal for cognitive impairment articles shared on social media. Among the various types of cognitive impairment, most articles were related to dementia (all subtypes), Alzheimer’s disease, and aging. The most common article type was original scientific paper, especially cohort study. The most popular topic was the identification of protective or risk factors for cognitive impairment. Conclusion. The characteristics of articles with a high Altmetric Attention Score were somewhat different from those of articles with a high number of traditional citations. Social media had the disadvantage that it was difficult to verify the authenticity of the primary source in question, but the advantage was that it could immediately determine the trends regarding how information about that source was being shared and consumed. Therefore, it may be advisable to use Altmetric analysis in combination with traditional methods of evaluating the research articles to understand the dissemination of scientific research and to direct future research.

Factors associated with high Altmetric Attention Score in dermatology research

“…In our study, the journals that published articles predicting most social attraction were JAMA and JAAD, which may suggest articles published in journals with a higher IF receive more social attention than those published in journals with a lower IF 9 . Notwithstanding the limitations in differentiating scholarly impact from online popularity, it is possible that the high number of social media mentions is representative both of a true effect of academic recognition as well as the eminent attention among scientists and the general population 5,10 …”

“…9 Notwithstanding the limitations in differentiating scholarly impact from online popularity, it is possible that the high number of social media mentions is representative both of a true effect of academic recognition as well as the eminent attention among scientists and the general population. 5,10 Previous studies have reported that the popularity of an article across social media platforms is not associated with the magnitude of the author's social media network. 11 In our study, the lack of visible correlation between high AAS and the number of authors on multivariate analysis also raises the question of whether having fewer co-authors could really be a disadvantage for social media attention.…”

“…These findings support the potential impact of online platforms for scholarly literature dissemination, recognising that social attention may be dependent on some manuscript characteristics. Some of the data gathered may be utilised when establishing policies or planning public health promotion campaigns while opening the forum for further discussion regarding how the social impact of an academic output may be increased 10,16 . It is hoped that this study stimulates knowledge among the dermatology readership and community at large as we adapt to the changing environment for measuring social impact in the digital age 1 …”

An analysis of journalism articles achieving high Altmetric attention scores

“…They declared that researchers, practitioners, research managers and journal editors should pay more attention to altmetrics as a supplement to bibliometrics. Kim et al (2020) investigated the top 50 papers on cognitive impairment on Altmetric. Like Kolahi and Khazaei (2016), they extracted desired data for selected journals using an Altmetric Explorer.…”

“…This study aimed to discover insights into the public discussion of the journalism subject area. Previous studies on altmetrics mostly have been done in areas of medicine, such as dentistry (Kolahi & Khazaei, 2016), stroke (Kim et al, 2019), cognitive impairment (Kim et al, 2020), Parkinson's disease (Araujo et al, 2017), emergency medicine (Barbic et al, 2016), neurosurgery (Wang et al, 2017), and nuclear medicine (Baek et al, 2020). One possible reason for the popularity of this topic in medicine might be the fundamental importance of medical issues in the life of the public.…”