Evaluation of clinical psychology research through bibliometric and altmetric analyses

Andrabi S.A., Loan F.A.

Purpose The purpose of this study is to apply altmetrics and bibliometric indicators on the top 100 most mentioned articles published related to the sustainable development goal (SDG)-13, Climate Action. Design/methodology/approach The authors used the Altmetric Explorer’s SDGs filter to extract the most mentioned articles belonging to Climate Action and their other characteristics, such as DOI, titles, tools mentioning them and their demographic descriptions. The same set of papers was searched in the Dimensions database to extract them in the format importable in R-studio to check the distribution of papers across various journals and identify their subject category, countries and institutions publishing these papers. Further, SPSS was used to check the correlation between altmetric attention score (AAS) and citations. Findings The results of the paper showed the mean of AAS and the citations received by the articles was 3,556.35 and 304.04, respectively. Twitter has been the most used social media platform for mentioning the research related to climate action, covering 88.1% of the total mentions. The Twitter and the News mention demographics show the USA contributing the most tweet mentions (15.2%) as well as news mentions (57.65%) to the papers. Also, the USA has solely published 49 papers from the total papers selected for the study. The papers were published in 31 journals most of them belonging to the quartile first (Q1) category and primarily belonged to the subject category “Earth Sciences.” Pearson’s correlational method showed a significant but low positive correlation between AAS and citation counts (r = 0.365, p = <0.001) and a strong positive correlation between the citations and Mendeley readership counts (r = 0.907). Originality/value The research is original in nature and discovered very interesting results about climate action using altmetric and bibliometric techniques.

Chan H.F., Önder A.S., Schweitzer S., Torgler B.

Social media, especially Twitter, plays an increasingly important role among researchers in showcasing and promoting their research. Does Twitter affect academic citations? Making use of Twitter activity about columns published on VoxEU, a renowned online platform for economists, we develop an instrumental variable strategy to show that Twitter activity about a research paper has a causal effect on the number of citations that this paper will receive. We find that the existence of at least one tweet, as opposed to none, increases citations by 16–25%. Doubling overall Twitter engagement boosts citations by up to 16%.

Gu L., Ding H.

Mental disorders are a public health concern with media as a primary source of information. This study aims to present current research on how the media reports mental disorders. This study conducted a bibliometric analysis of 130 published studies on media coverage of mental disorders, focusing on the research themes and research trends of the published studies. The results show that media coverage of mental disorders was generally negative and influenced by socio-demographic factors (e.g., age, gender, and cultural values). Results also show that social media was becoming crucial for mental health communication. Media worsen the stigma against those with mental disorders, continuing prejudice and discrimination. The field has shifted from traditional media to social media, and from general to specific mental disorder descriptions.

Mokhnacheva Y.V.

The article presents comparative data concerning the types of the same publications between two of the world’s leading scientific information systems – Web of Science and Scopus – and publishers. This paper shows significant differences in the typification of documents in a sample of the 3843 most actively cited works with Russian authorship of various types for the period 2010–2020. It shows that the type of publication is not an obvious criterion: the same work can be assigned different types depending on the source of information. The revealed discrepancies of information from various sources give grounds for a certain skepticism regarding the correctness of the formulation of tasks in the analysis of publication activity concerning the accounting of publications of only certain types. The results of this study suggest that if it is necessary to take into account only certain types of publications, information on the types of documents should be verified with the original information from publishers.

Hamidi A., Khosravi A., Hejazi R., FatemehTorabi, Abtin A.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, modern science demonstrated its ability to respond well to the health crisis by publishing useful and reliable information. This disease has also led to an increase in psychological publications in this field. However, most scientometric studies have focused on medical aspects, and social science research has been neglected. Therefore, to fill this research gap, we analyzed the research on COVID-19 in the field of psychology to provide an insight into the perspective, research fields, and international collaborations. Data were collected from the Web of Science database and analyzed using Citespace and Bibliometrix (Biblioshiny). The overall performance of the documents was described, and then keyword co-occurrence and co-authorship networks were visualized. Fifteen main clusters were formed by drawing document co-citation network. The result indicates that Anxiety, mental health, delirium, loneliness, and suicide were important topics for researchers. Considering the special conditions that COVID-19 created for human societies, perhaps one of the most important subjects in the field of health is psychological studies. Using the results of this study, psychology researchers can identify their potential colleagues and research gaps in the subject of Covid-19.

Mendlowicz M.V., Gekker M., Xavier Gomes de Araújo A., de Oliveira L., Pereira M.G., Berger W., Pires da Luz M., Vilete L.M., Marques-Portella C., Figueira I., Reis da Silva Junior T.

Fleerackers A., Nehring L., Maggio L.A., Enkhbayar A., Moorhead L., Alperin J.P.

The company Altmetric is often used to collect mentions of research in online news stories, yet there have been concerns about the quality of this data. This study investigates these concerns. Using a manual content analysis of 400 news stories as a comparison method, we analyzed the precision and recall with which Altmetric identified mentions of research in 8 news outlets. We also used logistic regression to identify the characteristics of research mentions that influence their likelihood of being successfully identified. We find that, for a predefined set of outlets, Altmetric’s news mention data were relatively accurate (F-score = 0.80), with very high precision (0.95) and acceptable recall (0.70), although recall is below 0.50 for some news outlets. Altmetric is more likely to successfully identify mentions of research that include a hyperlink to the research item, an author name, and/or the title of a publication venue. This data source appears to be less reliable for mentions of research that provide little or no bibliometric information, as well as for identifying mentions of scholarly monographs, conference presentations, dissertations, and non-English research articles. Our findings suggest that, with caveats, scholars can use Altmetric news mention data as a relatively reliable source to identify research mentions across a range of outlets with high precision and acceptable recall, offering scholars the potential to conserve resources during data collection. Our study does not, however, offer an assessment of completeness or accuracy of Altmetric news data overall.

Gao M., Zhang H., Wang C., Mou X., Zhu Q., Wang J., Gao D.

BackgroundPremenstrual syndrome/premenstrual dysphoric disorder is a serious condition affecting women worldwide, causing clinically significant distress or interference. Therefore, solving these diseases has become the utmost concern worldwide, culminating in numerous studies. In this study, we performed bibliometric analysis on the 100 most cited papers with the aim of identifying research hot spots and trends in this field.MethodsWe screened the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) of Web of Science (WOS) to identify the top 100 cited studies on PMS/PMDD. Next, we analyzed relevant literature from various journals, countries/regions, institutions, authors, and keywords. Finally, we used VOSviewer and Citespace software to generate knowledge maps and identify hot spots and trends.ResultsThe top 100 highly cited studies were published in 55 journals, between 1999 and 2017, across 24 countries/regions around the world. Most articles were published in Obstetrics and Gynecology, whereas Psych neuroendocrinology had the largest average number of citations per paper. The United States had the highest number of publications, followed by England, Canada, and Sweden. The top three institutions that published the highly cited literature were the University of Pennsylvania, Yale University, and National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Obstetrics, Gynecology, Psychiatry, and Reproductive Biology were the main research directions, whereas the top 10 Co-occurrence of Keywords included double-blind, fluoxetine, efficacy, prevalence, epidemiology, phase sertraline treatment, depression, progesterone, placebo, and placebo-controlled trial. Results from cluster analysis indicated that more comprehensive epidemiology and steroid pathogenesis have gradually become the hot spots and trends.ConclusionThese findings demonstrated that bibliometric analysis can intuitively and rapidly reveal the frontiers and hot spots of research in PMS/PMDD. Notably, epidemiology, steroid pathogenesis, GABAA receptor delta subunits, and double-blind placebo-controlled trials are potential areas of focus for future research.

Grover S., Gupta B.M.

to examine the global publication output on Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) during the last 20 years using bibliometric methods.The quantitative and qualitative analysis of global publications was performed for all the publications in Scopus database by using "OCD, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, other related disorders" as keyword in "Title" tag.10,365 publications on OCD and related disorders were indexed in Scopus international database in the last 20 years and these publications were cited 241,962 times, averaging 23.34 citations per paper (CPP). About 24.91% share of global publication output received funding support and registered a CPP of 36.57. Among various countries, authors from USA, U.K., and Germany contributed the largest number of publications (3585, 965, and 836 publications), and publications arising from Netherlands (36.79 and 1.58), U.K. (32.65 and 1.40), and USA (32.43 and 1.39) registered the highest CPP and relative citation index (RCI). The organizations that produced the highest number of publications were Harvard Medical School, USA (487 papers), Massachusetts General Hospital, USA (454 papers), and King's College London, U.K. (297 papers). The authors who published highest number of papers were E.A. Storch (254 papers), D. Mataix-Cols (178 papers), and D.J. Stein (178 papers). The authors whose publications had highest CPP and RCI were B.D. Greenberg (USA) (73.76 and 3.16), and S.A. Rasmussen (USA) (63.36 and 2.71).This study reveals that majority of the research on OCD and related disorders is from the developed countries and compared to disorders like schizophrenia, OCD has received less research attention.

AlRyalat S.A., Al Oweidat K., Al-Essa M., Ashouri K., El Khatib O., Al-Rawashdeh A., Yaseen A., Toumar A., Alrwashdeh A.

Background: Altmetrics measure the impact of journal articles by tracking social media, Wikipedia, public policy documents, blogs, and mainstream news activity, after which an overall Altmetric attention score (AAS) is calculated for every journal article. In this study, we aim to assess the AAS for influenza related articles and its relation to the influenza season in the USA. Methods: This study used the openly available Altmetric data from Altmetric.com. First, we retrieved all influenza-related articles using an advanced PubMed search query, then we inputted the resulted query into Altmetric explorer. We then calculated the average AAS for each month during the years 2012-2018. Results: A total of 24,964 PubMed documents were extracted, among them, 12,395 documents had at least one attention. We found a significant difference in mean AAS between February and each of January and March (p< 0.001, mean difference of 117.4 and 460.7, respectively). We found a significant difference between June and each of May and July (p< 0.001, mean difference of 1221.4 and 162.7, respectively). We also found a significant difference between October and each of September and November (p< 0.001, mean difference of 88.8 and 154.8, respectively). Conclusion: We observed a seasonal trend in the attention toward influenza-related research, with three annual peaks that correlated with the beginning, peak, and end of influenza seasons in the USA, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data.

Meshcheryakov B.G., Ponomareva V.V., Shvedovskaya A.A.

Background. ! is paper presents the results of a study into the breadth, dynamics, and diversity of the interdisciplinary branch of cultural-historical psychology. ! e scatter of thematic areas within the cultural-historical approach indicates the urgent need to continue a systematic and holistic analysis of research related to cultural-historical topics in the context of its various directions and research groups. Design. A bibliometric analysis of scienti" c publications indexed by the Web of Science CC was carried out for the 2010–2020 period . Our previous bibliographic study (Rubtsov et al., 2019) revealed that the number of publications on cultural-historical psychology and citations of them, has recently increased, although unevenly. Results. According to our results, the number of publications on cultural-historical psychology is growing unevenly; publications from Russia and the United States made up almost equal shares of the sample, and third place was taken by England, followed by Finland and Sweden. ! e top 10 journals fell into two subject areas: Psychology and Education and Educational Research. With regard to the geographical location of the publishing houses of the top 10 journals, the highest number was taken by England and Russia. ! e dominant areas of research were teacher education, university education, and learning activity. Conclusion. ! e most frequently used terms were Vygotsky, activity approach, CHAT, CHP, ZPD, and learning activity.

González-Alcaide G.

Bibliometrics, and more generally all metric indicators, are increasingly used as research tools as well as for managing and evaluating research activities. This study analyzes the characteristics of publications that use bibliometrics as a research method. We identified all relevant records indexed in the Web of Science-Core Collection (1965–2019), generating a coauthorship network and performing a comparative analysis of papers published in journals specializing in Information Science & Library Science (IS&LS) and in other areas of knowledge. Metric studies show an “uncontainable” pattern of dynamic development, with the number of papers published in the past 15 years multiplying 12-fold and spreading to all areas of knowledge. This growth has evaded the discipline’s natural mechanisms of control, taking place outside the traditional niche of bibliometric studies as an autonomous and “uncontrollable” process that disregards the knowledge generated within the main theoretical frameworks linked to IS&LS. Different research groups are widely dispersed and atomized, and there are few collaboration and citation ties between IS&LS and non-IS&LS bibliometric research. Our results should spark reflection on the need to strengthen the teaching of bibliometrics and other metrics for use as research tools, to demand rigorous and critical review prior to the acceptance and publication of this type of study, and to foster links and cohesion of the extended research community operating in the area.

Shah S. ., Ahmad T., Chen S., Yuting G., Liu X., Yuan Y.

Dagar A., Falcone T.

• We present the first study analyzing the altmetric attention score (AAS) in psychiatry. • With median AAS of 44, they receive higher public attention than other specialties. • AAS had a weak, but significant, correlation to the number of citations. • Predictors of higher AAS included the journal of publication, article topic and type. • Articles about suicide, addiction, lifestyle's impact on mental wellbeing had highest AAS. The aim of our study is to investigate the social and electronic media attention received by psychiatry research using the Altmetric attention scores (AAS) and the predictors of this public engagement. We analyzed all research articles published in 2016 in the top 5 impact factor-based psychiatry journals. We extracted the AAS, various media (news, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) engagements, and citations received by each article using online database. Univariate and multivariate linear regression analysis was performed. A total of 360 research articles published in JAMA Psychiatry, The Lancet Psychiatry, World Psychiatry, American Journal of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics were included. The median AAS was 44 [IQR = 15 – 146] and median citations were 26 (14-47) with a significant but weak correlation (r s = 0.43; p = 0.001) between the two metrics. The multivariate model found that the significant predictors of an 'article's higher AAS were its journal of publication, article type, and the topics addressed in the article (impact of lifestyle on mental well-being, suicide, and addiction). In conclusion, we found a very high degree of public engagement with psychiatry research, especially when compared to other medical specialties. This highlights great opportunity as well as responsibility for psychiatry research community.

Yu H., Murat B., Li L., Xiao T.

Data accuracy is essential for reliable and valid altmetrics analysis. Although Twitter and Facebook altmetrics data are widely used for scholarly communication and scientific evaluation, few studies have tapped into their accuracy issue. Based on content analysis of random sample records over two phases, this study has investigated and compared the accuracy of Twitter and Facebook altmetrics data. Major conclusions are drawn as follows. (1) Three error types were identified from the altmetric data provider and six error types were identified from the altmetric data aggregator. Twitter and Facebook have shared most of the error types except for minor differences in the sub-categories. (2) The overall error rate is substantially high, being 17% and 32% for Twitter and Facebook respectively in April, 2019. However, except for publication date error and posting date error, the percentage of the other error types is relatively low (being around 3%). (3) The percentage of error types related to the dynamic nature of Twitter and Facebook is increasing over time, while percentage of error types concerning the bibliographic data is decreasing over time. (4) The error types are either “high seriousness low percentage” or “low seriousness high percentage”, therefore, they would probably not bring significant negative influence. (5) Underlying reasons of these error types are various. They could be attributable to the Twitter (or Facebook) user, Twitter (or Facebook) platform, altmetric database, as well as the third-party data provider. These results suggest that Twitter and Facebook altmetrics data in the Altmetric database are reliable on the whole, although there is still space for further improvement.