Relationship of Altmetric Attention Score, Twitter Performance, and Dimensions Badge Value With Traditional Metrics in Top-Cited Anterior Cruciate Ligament Research Studies

BACKGROUND: Alternative citation metrics—such as the Altmetric Attention Score (AAS), number of tweets (TN), and dimensions badge value (DBV)—are emerging as new options for assessing the value of scientific works. PURPOSE: To analyze the AAS of highly cited articles on the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and to assess the relationship between alternative and traditional metrics such as journal rankings and article citation performance. STUDY DESIGN: Cross-sectional study. METHODS: A search was conducted using the Web of Science Core Collection of databases with “anterior cruciate ligament” as the search term. Full-text articles published between 2011 and 2021 were reviewed, and the top 100 cited articles were determined. The articles were analyzed by publication year, study design, research topic, journal impact factor, journal h-index, number of total citations (TC), recent citations (RC) (ie, citations in the latest 2 years), and average citation per year (ACY), as well as AAS, TN, and DBV. RESULTS: For articles in the top 100 list, the median TC was 160 (interquartile range [IQR], 117-561) and the median AAS was 24.50 (IQR, 1-730). A higher AAS score was achieved by articles on return to sports and anterolateral ligament (P < .05). The AAS and TN were significantly and positively correlated with the RC (r = 0.459 and P = .001; r = 0.438 and P = .001, respectively) and ACY (r = 0.363 and P = .001; r = 0.393 and P = .001, respectively). CONCLUSION: Alternative metrics were linked to traditional metrics but were not a direct representation of bibliometrics. The AAS was not correlated with TC numbers in the ACL research. Higher AAS and Twitter popularity of an article were related to receiving high-volume RC performance. The DBV represented a stronger correlation with traditional metrics than the AAS.