International Journal of Information Science and Management (IJISM)

Analysis of the Status of Articles Indexed in the Field of Infertility Treatment Published by Iranian Scholars: A Citation Analysis Approach versus Altmetrics Indicators

Articles in Press

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Shohreh SeyyedHosseini 1
Mahdieh Shahneh 2
Arezoo Abjameh 2
Reza BasirianJahromi 3

1 Ph.D, Knowledge and Information Science, Department of Medical Library and Information Science, Bushehr University of Medical Sciences, Bushehr, Iran.

2 BSc, Medical Library and Information Science, Department of Medical Library and Information Science, Student Research and Technology Committee, Bushehr University of Medical Sciences, Bushehr, Iran.

3 Associate Prof., Knowledge and Information Science, Department of Medical Library and Information Science, Bushehr University of Medical Sciences, Bushehr, Iran.

10.22034/ijism.2026.2053371.1736
Abstract
The current study examines the status of scientific outputs on infertility treatment indexed in PubMed and evaluates these outputs on social media using altmetric indicators from 2015 to 2024. This research was conducted using a descriptive-analytical approach. To assess the status of scientific articles on infertility treatment using citation analysis, articles indexed in PubMed from 2015 to 2024 were collected, and their citation counts on Google Scholar were extracted. Subsequently, the effectiveness of these articles in social networks was considered using the altmetrics approach. In this section, the attention given to the papers was measured using the Altmetrics Bookmarklet. Finally, the data were analyzed using SPSS software. Of 1,204 articles retrieved from the PubMed database, 493 documents (42%) were mentioned in social media. During this period, attention to these articles has grown, with fluctuations, averaging 21.24 citations per article. Additionally, in the referenced articles by Iranian researchers, Mendeley accounted for the largest share with 482 articles (77.97%). Master's students had the highest share of referencing articles on Mendeley (38.10%). The United States accounted for 31.7% of the tweets related to articles by Iranian researchers, holding the largest share of retweets on platform X. The subject areas of medicine had the highest share of references on Mendeley at 18.3%. Furthermore, the correlation coefficient between the citation index and the Altmetric score was 0.27 and significant (P<0.05). Considering the positive role of social media in increasing the visibility and citation of scientific articles in the infertility treatment, showed that less than half of the articles by Iranian scholars in the infertility treatment have received attention on social media, it can be concluded that it is essential for researchers, academic institutions, and organizations supporting researchers to actively engage on various social media platforms to enhance the visibility of their publications and, consequently, increase the citation of these resources.

Keywords

Infertility
PubMed
Altmetric
Mendeley
X
citation analysis
Articles
Iranian Scholars

Subjects

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International Journal of Information Science and Management (IJISM)

Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Available Online from 18 April 2026

  • Receive Date 13 February 2025
  • Accept Date 18 April 2026

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