Determining the Relationship Between Altmetric Score and Literature Citations in the Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Literature.

PURPOSE: We explored whether Altmetric scores (London, UK) correlate with traditional bibliometrics in the oral and maxillofacial surgery (OMS) literature. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This study analyzed the 7 OMS journals with the highest impact factors (IFs) and the 20 most-cited articles within those journals from 2013 and 2016. Citations, Altmetric scores, and media "mentions" were studied. Correlations between Altmetric scores, citations, and IF were examined using Pearson correlation coefficients and descriptive statistics. Twitter account data (San Francisco, CA) also were compared with other metrics. RESULTS: There was no correlation between citations and Altmetric scores (r = 0.146, P = .087) or between IF and Altmetric scores (r = 0.139, P = .100) in 2013. Altmetric scores also were not significantly correlated with citations (r = 0.116, P = .176) or IF (r = 0.104, P = .225) in 2016. Total Altmetric scores were 2.5 times higher in 2016 than in 2013, with news outlets, Facebook (Menlo Park, CA), and Twitter showing 257%, 243%, and 307% increases in mentions, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Compared with articles in other fields, OMS articles accrued lower Altmetric scores, representing a paucity of attention garnered on social media outlets. Altmetric scores are currently insufficient to replace traditional bibliometrics but can provide valuable information on public acquisition of knowledge, especially in the immediate post-publication interval.