Open Access Publication in Total Ankle Arthroplasty Literature Is Associated With Increased Social Media Attention, but Not Increased Citations

Trayce Gray; Andrew B Harris; Rahi Patel; Julius Oni; Amiethab Aiyer

doi:10.1177/24730114241247817

Open Access Publication in Total Ankle Arthroplasty Literature Is Associated With Increased Social Media Attention, but Not Increased Citations

Foot Ankle Orthop. 2024 May 7;9(2):24730114241247817. doi: 10.1177/24730114241247817. eCollection 2024 Apr.

Authors

Trayce Gray¹, Andrew B Harris², Rahi Patel³, Julius Oni², Amiethab Aiyer²

Affiliations

¹ University of Houston Tilman J Fertitta Family College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA.
² Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA.
³ University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.

Abstract

Background: Open access (OA) publications are increasingly common in orthopaedic literature. However, whether OA publications are associated with increased readership or citations among total ankle arthroplasty (TAA) literature is unclear. We hypothesize that compared with non-OA status, OA status is associated with increased social media dissemination, and readership, but not with citation count. This study aimed to analyze social media attention, citations, readership, and cost of TAA OA and non-OA publications.

Methods: Using a PubMed query search, there were 368 publications from 81 journals, with 25% (91/368) being OA articles and 75% (277/368) non-OA articles from 2016 to 2023. We analyzed the Altmetric Attention Score (AAS), Mendeley readership score, and citations between OA vs non-OA articles. Citations and cost of OA articles were determined using an altered timeline and publisher's website, respectively. Subgroup analysis was performed among articles published in the top 5 TAA journals (Tables 2 and 3). Negative binomial regression was used while adjusting for days since publication. Significance was considered at P <.05.

Results: OA publication was associated with a larger mean AAS score (8.7 ± 37.0 vs 4.8 ± 26.3), Mendeley readership (42.4 ± 41.6 vs 34.9 ± 25.7), and Twitter mentions (4.6 ± 7.4 vs 3.3 ± 8.1), but not citations (19.7 ± 24.8 vs 20.3 ± 23.5) (Table 1).

Conclusion: TAA OA publications and top 5 journals were associated with significantly increased social media attention but not Mendeley readership or citation counts.

Keywords: altmetric; citation; open access; social media; total ankle arthroplasty.