Which orthodontic articles are accessed online the most? Exploring article usage metrics along with citations and altmetrics.

Objectives: To investigate the current state of article usage metrics in orthodontics.

Materials and methods: Out of all orthodontic journals listed in Journal Citation Reports 2022, the European Journal of Orthodontics and The Angle Orthodontist fulfilled the inclusion criteria. All journal issues published in 2021 were scrutinized for original research articles and systematic reviews/meta-analyses, and the following features were collected: article type, subject, title, number of words and authors, Altmetric Attention Score (AAS), X (formerly Twitter) posts, and Mendeley reads. Article citations, number of publications, and h-index of the last authors were retrieved from Web of Science (WoS).

Results: 181 articles were considered eligible. The median number of views and downloads of included articles was 1296 (range: 355-10,233) and 793 (range: 167-3629). Page views, downloads, and total views were significantly correlated with WoS citations (rho > 0.345; P < .001). There was no correlation between usage metrics, AAS, X posts, and Mendeley reads. Number of downloads were significantly higher in studies dealing with new technologies, and where the last author had 1-40 publications or an h-index of 0-30.

Conclusions: Page views, downloads, and total views were positively correlated with WoS citations and, therefore, may serve as an early estimate of future citations. Significant variations in article downloads may be expected in relation to article subject, scientific productivity, and impact of the last authors.