Social Media Influence Does Not Reflect Scholarly or Clinical Activity in Real Life

Circ Arrhythm Electrophysiol. 2020 Nov;13(11):e008847. doi: 10.1161/CIRCEP.120.008847. Epub 2020 Oct 8.

Abstract

Background: Social media has become a major source of communication in medicine. We aimed to understand the relationship between physicians' social media influence and their scholarly and clinical activity.

Methods: We identified attending US electrophysiologists on Twitter. We compared physician Twitter activity to (1) scholarly publication record (h-index) and (2) clinical volume according to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The ratio of observed versus expected (obs/exp) Twitter followers was calculated based on each scholarly (K-index) and clinical activity.

Results: We identified 284 physicians, with mean Twitter age of 5.0 (SD, 3.1) years and median 568 followers (25th, 75th: 195, 1146). They had a median 34.5 peer-reviewed articles (25th, 75th: 14, 105), 401 citations (25th, 75th: 102, 1677), and h-index 9 (25th, 75th: 4, 19.8). The median K-index was 0.4 (25th, 75th: 0.15, 1.0), ranging from 0.0008 to 29.2. The median number of electrophysiology procedures was 77 (25th, 75th: 0, 160) and evaluation and management visits 264 (25th, 75th: 59, 516) in 2017. The top 1% electrophysiologists for followers accounted for 20% of all followers, 17% of status updates, had a mean h-index of 6 (versus 15 for others, P=0.3), and accounted for 1% of procedural and evaluation and management volumes. They had a mean K-index of 21 (versus 0.77 for others, P<0.0001) and clinical obs/exp follower ratio of 17.9 and 18.1 for procedures and evaluation and management (P<0.001 each, versus others [0.81 for each]).

Conclusions: Electrophysiologists are active on Twitter, with modest influence often representative of scholarly and clinical activity. However, the most influential physicians appear to have relatively modest scholarly and clinical activity.

Keywords: Medicare; electrophysiology; publication; social media.

Publication types

  • Comparative Study
  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

MeSH terms

  • Authorship
  • Biomedical Research*
  • Cardiac Electrophysiology*
  • Electrophysiologic Techniques, Cardiac*
  • Humans
  • Peer Influence*
  • Periodicals as Topic
  • Scholarly Communication*
  • Social Media*
  • Workload*