Analysis of citation impact and social media engagement in cancer pain research.

Abstract

e23120 Background: Cancer-related pain significantly affects patients' quality of life, with up to 66% experiencing severe pain despite advancements in pain management. While bibliometric indicators reflect academic influence through citations, altmetrics measure broader societal engagement via social media, news, and other online platforms, providing complementary perspectives on the scientific and societal impact of research in this field. Objective: This study aimed to identify and analyze the top 100 most-cited articles on cancer-related pain using bibliometric and altmetric indicators, and explore correlations between altmetric scores, average citations per year, and total citation counts to evaluate both academic and societal impacts. Methods: A comprehensive search was conducted in the Web of Science database on November 2, 2024, to retrieve articles on cancer-related pain published between 1975 and 2024. Articles were ranked by citation counts, and bibliometric data (e.g., total citations, h-index, country of origin, publishing journal) were extracted. Altmetric scores were obtained using the Altmetric Explorer tool. Relationships between bibliometric and altmetric metrics were analyzed using Spearman's rank correlation test. Results: The top 100 articles were published in 35 journals, with PAIN contributing the most (n = 19). The most-cited article was "Pain and Its Treatment in Outpatients with Metastatic Cancer" by Cleeland et al. (1994). Publications peaked between 2000 and 2009, with the United States, England, and Italy leading in research output. Harvard University emerged as the most impactful institution. Notably, articles published in Q2 journals had higher average citations than those in Q1 journals. The article with the highest altmetric score (430) was "Update on Prevalence of Pain in Patients With Cancer: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis" (2016). A moderate-to-strong positive correlation was found between total citations and average citations per year (r = 0.64). The correlation between altmetric scores and total citations was weak (r = 0.18). Conclusions: This study provides a comprehensive evaluation of the academic and societal impact of cancer-related pain research through bibliometric and altmetric analyses. Findings highlight the contributions of high-impact journals, leading institutions, and countries with advanced research infrastructures. The weak correlation between altmetrics and citation counts underscores that articles with high academic impact may not receive equivalent attention on social media, highlighting the value of altmetrics in capturing broader societal engagement. To expand research impact beyond academia, targeted dissemination strategies are needed to ensure scientific knowledge effectively reaches both the academic community and society at large.