Investigating of Association between Altmetrics Activity Indicators and Citation Quality Indicators in Iranian Medical Journals

BACKGROUND: Given the limitations of traditional citation indicators, more indicators are needed to examine the effectiveness and improvement of existing indicators. The present study aimed to investigate the association between Altmetrics activity and quality citation indicators in Iranian journals based on Clarivate Analytics, Scopus, and Medline. METHODS: The research was carried out using Altmetrics method through scientometric approach. The population of the present study was Iranian medical journals, which were available at three databases of Clarivate Analytics, Scopus, and Medline. In order to obtain quality information, we've used the indicators of CiteScore, SJR, and SNIP at Scopus database as well as the impact factor at JCR database; besides, to find Altmetrics indicators and Altmetrics scores of articles, the Altmetrics explorer database was used. RESULTS: About 16% of the articles in the reviewed journals were cited at least once in the social media and had Altmetrics scores. Among the reviewed journals, the highest rate of social media coverage was related to the Iranian Journal of Basic Medical Sciences, and the highest Altmetrics score obtained from the mean Altmetrics score of the papers was related to Cell Journal (Yakhteh). A review of quality indicators of journals with Altmetrics coverage and Altmetrics score of journals showed that there was a significant and positive correlation between the Altmetrics score and impact factor. However, any significant association was neither found between the journal's coverage and SiteScore, SNIP, SJR, nor between the journal's Altmetrics score and quality indicators. CONCLUSIONS: According to the results of this study, policy makers of scientific journals should adopt strategies that bring about social media presence; thus, we will find further Iranian articles in the social media.