J Korean Med Sci.  2022 Feb;37(6):e44. 10.3346/jkms.2022.37.e44.

Bibliometric and Altmetric Analysis of Retracted Articles on COVID-19

• Khan H
• Gupta P
• Zimba O
• Gupta L

• KMID: 2526032
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.3346/jkms.2022.37.e44

Abstract

Background
With greater use of social media platforms for promotions of research articles, retracted articles tend to receive approximately the same attention. We systematically analyzed retracted articles from retractionwatch.com to look at the Altmetric Attention Scores (AAS) garnered over a period of time in order to highlight the role of social media and other platforms in advertising retracted articles and its effect on the spread of misinformation.
Methods
Retractionwatch.com was searched for coronavirus disease 2019 related retracted papers on November 6th, 2021. Articles were excluded based on lack of digital object identifier (DOI), if they were preprint articles, absent AAS, and incomplete AAS of pre retraction, post retraction, or both scores.
Results
A total of 196 articles were found on the Retraction Watch website of which 189 were retracted papers and 7 were expression of concern (EOC). We then identified 175 articles after excluding those that did not have a DOI and 30 preprint articles were also excluded giving 145 articles. Further exclusion of articles with absent AAS and incomplete AAS resulted in a total of 22 articles.
Conclusion
Retracted articles receive significant online attention. Twitter and Mendeley were the most popular medium for publicizing retracted articles, therefore more focus should be given by journals and their Twitter accounts to discredit all their retracted articles. Preprints should be reconsidered as a whole by journals due to the huge risk they carry in disseminating false information.

Keyword

Social Media; COVID-19; Information Technology

Figure

• 

  Fig. 1 Flowchart for search strategy of retracted articles related to coronavirus disease 2019.DOI = digital object identifier.*One article was excluded due to the journal completely revoking the initial expression of concern

Reference

1. Gasparyan AY, Zimba O, Misra DP, Kitas GD. Monitoring information flow on coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Mediterr J Rheumatol. 2020; 31(Suppl 2):243–246. PMID: 33195999.

2. Banerjee D, Meena KS. COVID-19 as an “Infodemic” in public health: critical role of the social media. Front Public Health. 2021; 9:610623. PMID: 33816415.

3. Dunn AG, Mandl KD, Coiera E. Social media interventions for precision public health: promises and risks. NPJ Digit Med. 2018; 1(1):47. PMID: 30854472.

4. PLOS. The role of retractions in correcting the scientific literature - Speaking of Medicine and Health. Updated 2012. Accessed August 26, 2021. https://speakingofmedicine.plos.org/2012/09/25/the-role-of-retractions-in-correcting-the-scientific-literature/ .

5. Soltani P, Patini R. Retracted COVID-19 articles: a side-effect of the hot race to publication. Scientometrics. 2020; 125(1):819–822.

6. Serghiou S, Marton RM, Ioannidis JP. Media and social media attention to retracted articles according to Altmetric. PLoS One. 2021; 16(5):e0248625. PMID: 33979339.

7. Teixeira da Silva JA. Adjusting the use of preprints to accommodate the ‘quality’ factor in response to COVID-19. J Taibah Univ Med Sci. 2021; 16(4):477–481. PMID: 34408603.

8. LSE. Despite concerns, COVID-19 shows how social media has become an essential tool in the democratisation of knowledge. Updated 2020. Accessed June 23, 2021. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2020/06/05/despite-concerns-covid-19-shows-how-social-media-has-become-an-essential-tool-in-the-democratisation-of-knowledge/ .

9. Moylan EC, Kowalczuk MK. Why articles are retracted: a retrospective cross-sectional study of retraction notices at BioMed Central. BMJ Open. 2016; 6(11):e012047.

10. Candal-Pedreira C, Ruano-Ravina A, Fernández E, Ramos J, Campos-Varela I, Pérez-Ríos M. Does retraction after misconduct have an impact on citations? A pre-post study. BMJ Glob Health. 2020; 5(11):e003719.

11. Informa UK Limited, an Informa Group Company. Author services: how to measure research impact. Updated 2020. Accessed November 29, 2021. https://authorservices.taylorandfrancis.com/research-impact/how-to-measure-research-impact/ .

12. Anderson C, Nugent K, Peterson C. Academic journal retractions and the COVID-19 pandemic. J Prim Care Community Health. 2021; 12:21501327211015592. PMID: 33949228.

13. Retraction Watch. Retracted coronavirus (COVID-19) papers. Updated 2021. Accessed June 23, 2021. https://retractionwatch.com/retracted-coronavirus-covid-19-papers/ .

14. Nature Index. Google Scholar reveals its most influential papers for 2021. Updated 2021. Accessed December 6, 2021. https://www.natureindex.com/news-blog/google-scholar-reveals-most-influential-papers-research-citations-twenty-twenty-one .

15. Kambhampati SB, Vasudeva N, Vaishya R, Patralekh MK. Top 50 cited articles on Covid-19 after the first year of the pandemic: a bibliometric analysis. Diabetes Metab Syndr. 2021; 15(4):102140. PMID: 34186371.

16. BMJ. Top cited articles. Updated 2021. Accessed December 6, 2021. https://gh.bmj.com/pages/top-cited-articles/ .

17. David CC, San Pascual MR, Torres ME. Reliance on Facebook for news and its influence on political engagement. PLoS One. 2019; 14(3):e0212263. PMID: 30889186.

18. Keller B, Labrique A, Jain KM, Pekosz A, Levine O. Mind the gap: social media engagement by public health researchers. J Med Internet Res. 2014; 16(1):e8. PMID: 24425670.

19. Kavadichanda C. Journal metrics: different from author metrics. Indian J Rheumatol. 2020; 15(3):149–154.

20. Househ M. The use of social media in healthcare: organizational, clinical, and patient perspectives. Stud Health Technol Inform. 2013; 183:244–248. PMID: 23388291.

21. Goel A, Gupta L. Social media in the times of COVID-19. J Clin Rheumatol. 2020; 26(6):220–223. PMID: 32852927.

22. Ecker UK, Antonio LM. Can you believe it? An investigation into the impact of retraction source credibility on the continued influence effect. Mem Cognit. 2021; 49(4):631–644.

23. Altmetric. Altmetric Attention Score in context. Updated 2020. Accessed November 29, 2021. https://help.altmetric.com/support/solutions/articles/6000233313-putting-the-altmetric-attention-score-in-context .

24. Tang Y, Tseng H, Vann C. Unwrap citation count, Altmetric Attention Score and Mendeley readership status of highly cited articles in the top-tier LIS journals. Mem Commun. 2020; 69(8-9):653–664.

25. Kouzy R, Abi Jaoude J, Kraitem A, El Alam MB, Karam B, Adib E, et al. Coronavirus goes viral: quantifying the COVID-19 misinformation epidemic on Twitter. Cureus. 2020; 12(3):e7255. PMID: 32292669.

26. Prieto Curiel R, González Ramírez H. Vaccination strategies against COVID-19 and the diffusion of anti-vaccination views. Sci Rep. 2021; 11(1):6626. PMID: 33758218.

27. Brüssow H. COVID-19: vaccination problems. Environ Microbiol. 2021; 23(6):2878–2890. PMID: 33928745.

28. Johnson NF, Velásquez N, Restrepo NJ, Leahy R, Gabriel N, El Oud S, et al. The online competition between pro- and anti-vaccination views. Nature. 2020; 582(7811):230–233. PMID: 32499650.

29. Lentzen MP, Huebenthal V, Kaiser R, Kreppel M, Zoeller JE, Zirk M. A retrospective analysis of social media posts pertaining to COVID-19 vaccination side effects. Vaccine. 2022; 40(1):43–51. PMID: 34857421.

30. Li HO, Bailey A, Huynh D, Chan J. YouTube as a source of information on COVID-19: a pandemic of misinformation? BMJ Glob Health. 2020; 5(5):e002604.

31. Udawatta M, Ng E, Westley Phillips H, Chen JS, Wilson B, Prashant GN, et al. Age-related differences in social media use in the neurosurgical community: a multi-institutional study. Clin Neurol Neurosurg. 2019; 180:97–100. PMID: 30953974.

32. Alsobayel H. Use of social media for professional development by health care professionals: A cross-sectional web-based survey. JMIR Med Educ. 2016; 2(2):e15. PMID: 27731855.

33. Ventola CL. Social media and health care professionals: benefits, risks, and best practices. P&T. 2014; 39(7):491–520. PMID: 25083128.

34. Ahmed S, Gupta L. Perception about social media use by rheumatology journals: survey among the attendees of IRACON 2019. Indian J Rheumatol. 2020; 15(3):171–174.

35. The New York Times. The most influential spreader of coronavirus misinformation online. Updated 2021. Accessed July 25, 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/24/technology/joseph-mercola-coronavirus-misinformation-online.html .

36. Gupta L, Gasparyan AY, Misra DP, Agarwal V, Zimba O, Yessirkepov M. Information and misinformation on COVID-19: a cross-sectional survey study. J Korean Med Sci. 2020; 35(27):e256. PMID: 32657090.

37. Khan H, Gasparyan AY, Gupta L. Lessons learned from publicizing and retracting an erroneous hypothesis on the mumps, measles, rubella (MMR) vaccination with unethical implications. J Korean Med Sci. 2021; 36(19):e126. PMID: 34002546.

38. Journalist’s Resource. Academic journals, journalists perpetuate misinformation in handling research retractions. Updated 2021. Accessed June 23, 2021. https://journalistsresource.org/home/retraction-research-fake-peer-review/ .

39. Gaur PS, Gupta L. Social media for scholarly communication in Central Asia. Cent Asian J Med Hypotheses Ethics. 2020; 1(2):152–157.

40. King A. Fast news or fake news? The advantages and the pitfalls of rapid publication through pre-print servers during a pandemic. EMBO Rep. 2020; 21(6):e50817. PMID: 32496027.

41. Fraser N, Brierley L, Dey G, Polka JK, Pálfy M, Nanni F, et al. The evolving role of preprints in the dissemination of COVID-19 research and their impact on the science communication landscape. PLoS Biol. 2021; 19(4):e3000959. PMID: 33798194.

42. Haldule S, Davalbhakta S, Agarwal V, Gupta L, Agarwal V. Post-publication promotion in rheumatology: a survey focusing on social media. Rheumatol Int. 2020; 40(11):1865–1872. PMID: 32920728.

43. Zimba O, Gasparyan AY. Social media platforms: a primer for researchers. Reumatologia. 2021; 59(2):68–72. PMID: 33976459.

44. Eric Topol on Twitter: “Debunking another myth, the mRNA vaccines didn’t just suddenly appear in 2020 for covid-19. Many had been tested years previously for other viruses; status as of 4 years ago in this Table, and shown to be safe …”. Updated 2021. Accessed July 25, 2021. https://twitter.com/erictopol/status/1418997501315543040?s=24 .

45. Ganatra K, Gasparyan AY, Gupta L. Modern health journalism and the impact of social media. J Korean Med Sci. 2021; 36(22):e162. PMID: 34100565.

46. Zimba O, Radchenko O, Strilchuk L. Social media for research, education and practice in rheumatology. Rheumatol Int. 2020; 40(2):183–190. PMID: 31863133.