Dissemination of science-based peer-reviewed information is essential for increasing awareness of hidradenitis suppurativa, an inflammatory skin disease that is often underrecognized, leading to delayed diagnosis and higher severity at initial presentation [1]. Dermatologists are increasingly utilizing social media platforms to disseminate scientific information [2]. In contrast to medical journals, social media serves as a useful platform to inform the wider general public, both medical professionals and laypeople alike. New tools, including alternative metrics (altmetrics) and PlumX metrics, have been made available to evaluate the extent of an article’s dissemination across social media platforms [3,4]. Provided by altmetrics, the altmetric attention score is a weighted score of the amount of “online attention” a research article has received across social media platforms. These platforms include Facebook, Twitter, Google+, blogs, and others [5]. Similarly, PlumX has a PlumX field-weighted citation impact score (PlumX score) that is also a weighted score of the level of article dissemination across similar social media metrics and includes the number of citations, linkouts, and abstract views [6]. While the citation count or “impact factor” reflects the number of citations by other articles or journals, altmetrics and PlumX metrics reflect an article’s instantaneous attentiveness among news outlets, blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and other media platforms [7]. While these tools allow one to assess what kind of articles are garnering social media attention or “trending” on social media platforms, the assessment of the utility of altmetrics regarding hidradenitis suppurativa research has not been evaluated yet. Owing to the ability of these metrics to rapidly capture the level of scientific article dissemination, they have the potential of being used complementary with citation count and identifying high-impact hidradenitis suppurativa articles, since the traditional tool takes years to measure an article’s impact on field advancement. To evaluate the utility of these tools, we characterized the top 100 “trending” hidradenitis suppurativa articles across social media platforms captured in the altmetric database by altmetric attention scores complemented with PlumX scores and more established markers of manuscript value. Our study aimed to assess the social media platforms that most contribute to the dissemination of literature-based hidradenitis suppurativa information. We also sought to examine how alternative metrics compare with traditional metrics, such as citation count. We hypothesized that alternative metrics will be able to better complement more traditional metrics when evaluating an article’s quality.

Utilizing Altmetric Explorer, we identified articles using the PubMed search criterion “hidradenitis suppurativa.” Altmetric data components of the top 100 altmetric attention score hidradenitis suppurativa articles were extracted in July 2020. The number of mentions from the following altmetric data components was extracted and examined: news mentions, blog mentions, policy mentions, Twitter mentions, Facebook mentions, Wikipedia mentions, Reddit mentions, Mendeley readers, and number of Dimension citations [6]. Mentions represent a measure of how many times a specific term, such as “hidradenitis suppurative,” has been referenced on social media channels. Dimension citations include grants, publications, citations, alternative metrics, clinical trials, and patents. Data were also collected about the journal impact factor, journal title, open-access status, where the articles were published, article type, article study design, and article citation count [4,5]. PlumX field-weighted citation impact scores for each article were collected from the Scopus database. Statistical analysis was performed using Prism 8 (GraphPad software), and statistical significance was defined as a P value <.05. Spearman correlation coefficients were utilized to determine correlations [2]. Altmetric attention scores, PlumX field-weighted citation impact scores, and citation count were log transformed and adjusted by +1 for linear regression.

Of the top 100 “trending” hidradenitis suppurativa articles by highest altmetric attention score, most were published in JAMA Dermatology (n=27, 27%), followed by Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology (n=16, 16%) (Table 1). The median altmetric attention score, PlumX score, and citation count were 25.5, 3.7, and 10.5, respectively. Majority of the “trending” hidradenitis suppurativa research articles were published by authors from Europe (n=47). The median journal impact factor was 6.9. The highest altmetric attention score article was a review article (altmetric attention score=352) [8]. This review article discussed the diagnosis, epidemiology, and treatment of hidradenitis suppurativa, with specific emphasis on advances in the past 5 years [8]. A total of 58 articles had an altmetric attention score above 20, a marker for the top 5% of all scientific output [4]. Of the social media platforms, the most mentions came from Twitter (2830 mentions), which was mostly used to share European-affiliated articles. The second most mentions came from news (573 mentions), which was mostly used to share North American–affiliated articles. The number of Mendeley readers and Dimension citations were 5130 and 4152, respectively. Most of the articles were original articles (53 articles). A total of 49 articles were open access. The most common study design utilized was the clinical observational design (34 articles). A correlation was observed between the altmetric attention score and journal impact factor (r²=0.17, P<.001). Although no correlation was observed between citation count and the altmetric attention score (r²=0.019, P=.17; Figure 1), a positive correlation was observed between citation count and the PlumX score (r²=0.469, P<.001). The altmetric attention score was further found not to be correlated with citation count for particular article types in a chi-square analysis (P=.95). Open-access status did not affect the altmetric attention score (P=.71). Out of the 100 articles, most of the articles were published in 2017 (19 articles), followed by 18 articles published in 2019 (Figure 2).