Predictors of societal and professional impact of Endodontology research articles: A multivariate scientometric analysis

Abstract

Aim To identify factors that are predictive of short‐term professional and societal impact of research within the specialty of Endodontology and to identify the top‐10 articles that achieved the greatest societal impact and describe their characteristics. Methodology Research articles in the field of Endodontology published in 2019 were eligible for inclusion, with the sample identified using Medline. Following screening of titles and abstracts, bibliometric data of the identified articles were exported into a spreadsheet, where further data related to continental origin, type of article, type of journal (endodontic or non‐endodontic) and grant‐funding were collated, with additional data concerning presence of journal impact factor, citations, news mentions and Altmetric‐tracked‐mentions and scores compiled using Clarivate, Scopus, ProQuest and Altmetric Explorer, respectively. Data analysis comprised descriptive statistics, frequency distributions, cross‐tabulations and un/adjusted negative binomial regression models (p < .05). Results The search retrieved 30 443 articles; 951 were included for analysis. Most articles originated from Asia (43.2%) with over 51.5% of articles published in endodontic journals and 80% published in a journal with an impact factor. Over three‐quarters of articles were primary research, 141 were grant‐funded, 165 had a news mention, 338 achieved an Altmetric Attention Score (AAS) and 808 were cited. The five‐highest ranked articles were mentioned in general news bulletins, five of the top‐10 articles were primary research and six of the top‐10 were published in endodontic journals. The highest AAS and citation count were 100 and 87, respectively. Adjusted models demonstrated that the type of article, publication in a journal with an impact factor, absence of grant‐funding and coverage within general news bulletins predicted the AAS 's (p < .001). Article type, publication in an impact‐factor journal and presence of an AAS were predictive of citations (p < .001). Conclusions Article type and publication in a journal with an impact factor were significant predictors of both societal and professional impact of research articles within Endodontology in the short‐term. Non grant‐funded research and coverage in general news bulletins achieved greater societal impact, whereas an article achieving an AAS was also strongly related to professional impact.

The funding effect on citation and social attention: the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a case study

“…(2019) analyzed the impact of funding on innovation according to the performance of patents and concluded that federal support accelerates the production of innovation. And more recently, Doğramaci and Rossi-Fedele (2022) suggested that publication typology and journal impact factor were significant predictors of short-term social and academic impact of endodontic research articles. Non grant-funded research and the coverage in general news bulletins achieved higher social impact, while the social attention score was also strongly related to professional impact.…”

“…We analyze in this paper the effect of both funding and OA on social attention. There are other studies that evaluated the effect of funding on social attention (Doğramaci and Rossi-Fedele, 2022) or the effect of OA on social attention (Yu et al. , 2022).…”

Supporting grant reviewers through the scientometric ranking of applicants

“…As a simple example, in dentistry, if we compare two specialties (e.g. orthodontics [21] versus endodontics [22]), we will have different values. Ultimately, these differences can result in more funding for fields with higher scientometric values.…”

Bibliometric and altmetric analyses of the 100 top-cited letters in Endodontics

“…In 1973, he compiled a list of the 25 most cited articles published by science and technology journals [8], while one of his later analyses focused on the 100 most cited 'chemical' articles [9]. Subsequently, similar present-day citation analyses were applied to many other subjects including endodontics to retrieve information from many aspects of the subjects analyzed, such as collaboration patterns, research trends, national research performance and predictors of citation numbers [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17].…”

“…To the best of our knowledge, only two studies have investigated the altmetric features of endodontic articles. Neither of these studies examined letters in endodontics [15,35]. Therefore, this study aimed to identify the 100 top-cited letters in endodontics and analyze their bibliometric and altmetric features.…”