Could the Altmetric Score Be an Alternative Approach to Traditional Bibliometrics for Evaluating Influential Articles in Pediatric Robotic Surgery?

Medicine Advances Pub Date : 2025-08-08 DOI:10.1002/med4.70026

Boshen Shu

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Background

Traditional bibliometrics have been used to estimate the scientific impact of research across various fields. However, citation analysis is not without limitations. With the rapid development of social media, the Altmetric score has become popular for evaluating scientific work. This study aimed to determine whether the Altmetric score could replace traditional bibliometrics for assessing influential papers in pediatric robotic surgery.

Methods

The Web of Science database was searched for the 50 top-cited publications in pediatric robotic surgery, and the characteristics of each article were recorded and identified. Conventional bibliometric variables included the citation count and impact factor (IF) of the publishing journal. The Altmetric score database was used to identify the Altmetric score and details for each article. Statistical analysis, including Spearman's correlation coefficients, was performed using Microsoft Excel and GraphPad PRISM.

Results

The top 50 publications with the most citations were obtained and analyzed. A significant negative relationship was identified between the impact index and the Altmetric score (r = −0.42, p < 0.01, R² = 0.18), and no correlations were observed for the number of citations (r = −0.12, p = 0.40, R² = 0.01) and IF (r = −0.09, p = 0.53, R² = 0.01). X/Twitter (68%) was the most popular social media source for Altmetric score details.

Conclusions

This study did not identify a statistically significant correlation between Altmetric scores and conventional bibliometric variables in the 50 top-cited publications. Furthermore, the Altmetric score is susceptible to manipulation because its calculation mechanism is unknown. Thus, the Altmetric score does not currently deliver an alternative approach to traditional bibliometrics. A combination of traditional bibliometrics and the Altmetric score can provide a more comprehensive method for evaluating influential articles in pediatric robotic surgery.

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Altmetric评分是否可以替代传统文献计量学来评估儿科机器人外科中有影响力的文章？

传统的文献计量学已被用于评估各个领域研究的科学影响。然而，引文分析并非没有局限性。随着社交媒体的快速发展，Altmetric评分已经成为评估科学工作的流行方法。本研究旨在确定Altmetric评分是否可以取代传统的文献计量学来评估儿科机器人手术中有影响力的论文。方法在Web of Science数据库中检索被引次数最多的50篇儿科机器人外科学出版物，记录并识别每篇文章的特点。传统的文献计量变量包括发表期刊的引文数和影响因子。Altmetric评分数据库用于确定每篇文章的Altmetric评分和详细信息。采用Microsoft Excel和GraphPad PRISM进行统计学分析，包括Spearman相关系数。结果获得并分析了被引频次前50位的文献。影响指数与Altmetric评分呈显著负相关（r = - 0.42, p < 0.01, R2 = 0.18），而被引次数（r = - 0.12, p = 0.40, R2 = 0.01）与影响因子（r = - 0.09, p = 0.53, R2 = 0.01）无相关性。X/Twitter（68%）是Altmetric评分细节最受欢迎的社交媒体来源。本研究未发现50篇被引最多的出版物中Altmetric分数与传统文献计量变量之间存在统计学上显著的相关性。此外，Altmetric分数容易受到操纵，因为它的计算机制是未知的。因此，Altmetric评分目前并没有提供传统文献计量学的替代方法。将传统文献计量学与Altmetric评分相结合，可以为评估儿童机器人外科领域有影响力的文章提供更全面的方法。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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Medicine Advances

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