Early Online Attention Can Predict Citation Counts for Urological Publications: The #UroSoMe_Score

Background: The scientific impact of published articles has traditionally been measured as citation counts. However, there has been a shift in academia to a digitalized age in which research is widely read, disseminated, and discussed online. As part of this shift, each published article has a digital footprint.

Objective: To develop a urology social media score (#UroSoMe_Score) to predict citation counts from measures of online attention for urological articles.

Design, setting, and participants: We included articles published between June 2016 and June 2017 in the top ten highest-impact urology journals. We obtained data on the online attention received by each of these articles from Altmetric Explorer and 2-yr citation counts from Scopus.

Outcome measurements and statistical analysis: We created a multivariable linear model using the forward stepwise regression method based on the Akaike information criterion to determine the best-fitting model using online sources of attention to predict 2-yr citation count.

Results and limitations: We included a total of 2033 urology articles. The median weighted Altmetric score for the articles included was 4 (interquartile range [IQR] 2-11). The median number of citations for all articles included was 7 (IQR 3-14). There was an association between Altmetric score and 2-yr Scopus citation count (p < 0.001) but the adjusted R² value for this model was only 0.013. Our stepwise regression model revealed that citations could be predicted from a model comprising the following sources of online attention: policy documents, Google+, blogs, videos, Wikipedia, Twitter, and Q&A. The adjusted R² value for the #UroSoMe_Score model was 0.14, which is superior to the full Altmetric score.

Conclusions: The #UroSoMe_Score can be used to predict 2-yr citation counts for urological publications on the basis of online metrics.

Patient summary: Online measures of attention can be used to predict citation counts and thus the scientific impact of an article. Our #UroSoMe_Score can be used in such a manner specifically for the urological literature. Outliers may still be present especially for popular topics that receive online attention but are not heavily cited.