ArticleBMJ open2020
Cross-sectional analysis of bibliometrics and altmetrics: comparing the impact of qualitative and quantitative articles in the
Article in BMJ open, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed.
- Exploring the research landscape of exosomes in Parkinson's disease: a bibliometric analysis.Frontiers in neurology · 2026Article
- Quality of life after third molar surgery: a bibliometric analysis of randomized clinical trials.Medicina oral, patologia oral y cirugia bucal · 2025Article
- Knowledge mapping of micro/nanomotors in cancer treatment: a bibliometric analysis (2006-2025).Discover oncology · 2025Article
- Curated collections for educators: Nine key articles and article series for teaching qualitative research methods.AEM education and training · 2023Article
- Covid-19 and outdoor recreation - Lessons learned? Introduction to the special issue on "Outdoor recreation and Covid-19: Its effects on people, parks and landscapes".Journal of outdoor recreation and tourism · 2023Article
- Characteristics, quality and volume of the first 5 months of the COVID-19 evidence synthesis infodemic: a meta-research study.BMJ evidence-based medicine · 2022Review
- The Value and Potential of Qualitative Research Methods in Neurosurgery.World neurosurgery · 2022Article
- Global Research Trends in Tendon Stem Cells from 1991 to 2020: A Bibliometric and Visualized Study.Stem cells international · 2022Article
- Does the impact of medical publications vary by disease indication and publication type? An exploration using a novel, value-based, publication metric framework: the EMPIRE Index.F1000Research · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesIn comparison to quantitative research, the impact of qualitative articles in the medical literature has been questioned by the BMJ; to explore this, we compared the impact of quantitative and qualitative articles published in BMJ.
designCross-sectional survey.
settingArticles published in the BMJ between 2007 and 2017.
main outcome measuresBibliometric and altmetric measures of research impact were collected using Web of Science, Google Scholar, Scopus, Plum Analytics and ProQuest Altmetric. Bibliometric measures consisted of citation numbers, field weighted citation impact and citation percentile. Altmetric measures consisted of article usage, captures, mentions, readers, altmetric attention score and score percentile. Scores were compared using the Wilcoxon Rank-sum test.
resultsWe screened a total of 7777 articles and identified 42 qualitative articles. Each qualitative article was matched to 3 quantitative articles published during the same year (126 quantitative articles). Citation numbers were not statistically different between the two research types; the median number of citations (google scholar) per quantitative article was 62 (IQR 38-111) versus 58 (IQR 36-85) per qualitative article (p=0.47). Using Plum Analytics, qualitative articles were found to have a significantly higher usage, with a median of 984 (IQR 581-1351) versus 379 (IQR 177-763) for quantitative (p<0.001). The Altmetric Attention Score was higher for quantitative articles at 16 (IQR 7-37) versus qualitative articles at 9 (IQR 5-23, p=0.05), as was the Altmetric Score percentile 93 (IQR 87-96) versus 88 (IQR 76-95; p=0.02).
conclusionQualitative and quantitative articles published in the BMJ between 2007 and 2017 both have a high impact. No article type was consistently superior in terms of bibliometric or altmetric measures, suggesting that type of article is not the major driver of impact.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.