Can altmetric mentions reflect the quality of evidence? A study in Biomedical and Life Sciences

Pilar Valderrama (), Wenceslao Arroyo-Machado, Adela Baca and Daniel Torres-Salinas
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Pilar Valderrama: Universidad Internacional de La Rioja (UNIR)
Wenceslao Arroyo-Machado: University of Granada
Adela Baca: University of Granada
Daniel Torres-Salinas: University of Granada

Scientometrics, 2025, vol. 130, issue 4, No 13, 2345-2356

Abstract: Abstract Although the importance of the social impact of research continues to gain recognition, the extent of its utility is still up for debate. The objective of this study is to evaluate whether the altmetric mentions of publications in Biomedical and Life Sciences are associated with the study design, in view of the “pyramid” of scientific evidence. Data were obtained from PubMed and Altmetric.com. A total of 382,882 documents from 2020to 2021 and corresponding to the following study designs were obtained: Consensus Development Conferences & Guidelines, Systematic Reviews and/or Meta-analysis, Clinical Trials, Observational Studies, Reviews, and Case Reports. The indicators considered were Altmetric Attention Score (AAS), News mentions, Twitter mentions, Facebook mentions, Mendeley readers and Dimensions citations. Only documents with at least one mention/citation were retrieved. Reviews made up 53.9% of the output, followed by Case Reports (17%), while the least frequent was Consensus & Guidelines (0.5%). For each indicator, comparison of mentions/citations among the study designs by the Kruskal–Wallis test gave significant differences in all cases. The hierarchical order occupied by the study designs showed some variations for the different indicators. Global analysis of the altmetrics, could reflect the level of the pyramid of scientific evidence: Consensus Development & Guidelines is situated at the top, but it is followed by Clinical Trial rather than Systematic Review/Meta-analysis. The application of altmetrics to Biomedical and Life Sciences can be useful to discriminate between different study designs and would help identify the most appropriate ones for clinical decision-making.

Keywords: Evidence-based medicine; Altmetrics; Article type; Study design; Biomedical and life science (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1007/s11192-025-05292-4

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