The Status of the Top Midwifery Journals Indexed In Scopus Database: The Journals' Social Impact vs. the Journals' Professional Impact

Studying the social impact of scientific outputs on social media alongside their professional impact in the scientific database could lead the policymakers to outline the scientific roadmap. The current research aimed to investigate the relationship between altmetrics activity (social impact) and the quality of the maternity and midwifery journals (professional impact) indexed by Scopus in 2018. In this descriptive and relational research, altmetric and bibliometric indicators were utilized to study journal performance. The population included all maternity and midwifery journals in the Scopus (n=25). Altmetric Explorer, Scopus, Scimago Journal, Country Ranking (SJR), plus Journal Metrics were used for data gathering. Moreover, data analysis was conducted using descriptive and inferential tests in Microsoft Excel and SPSS. Of the 1944 papers with unique DOIs published in maternity and midwifery journals in 2018, 952 articles were mentioned at least one time on social media platforms (altmetrics coverage of 48.97%). The highest rank of the altmetrics coverage belonged to the Midwifery journal, The Journal of Perinatal and Neonatal Nursing, and Women and Birth, respectively. On the other side, the highest rank of the altmetrics attention belonged to Breastfeeding Medicine, The Journal of Perinatal and Neonatal Nursing, and Geburtshilfe und Frauenheilkunde, accordingly. There was a positive and statistically significant relationship between the altmetrics activity of journals and their qualitative metrics. The current research revealed that papers published in higher quality journals are more likely to be shared on social media platforms and get more altmetrics attention.