Higher citation rates of network research publications in Pediatrics education

Publications of medical education research networks have been associated with higher rigor and higher-level outcomes. We sought to determine whether they also receive more citations than comparable papers.

We compared citation rates for pediatric education articles published from studies by the Association of Pediatric Program Directors Longitudinal Educational Assessment Research Network (APPD LEARN) with other pediatric education papers, non-pediatric education papers, non-education pediatric papers, and non-education non-pediatric papers, controlling for journal, issue, and numbers of co-authors using a Poisson model.

We matched 50 APPD LEARN papers with 79 other pediatric education articles, 472 non-pediatric non-education articles, and 200 non-pediatric education articles. APPD LEARN articles had a significantly higher citation rate than other pediatric education articles in the same issues (adjusted incidence rate ratio 1.53, 95% CI 1.37-1.72, p<.001). Higher number of authors was also associated with higher citation rates (adjusted incidence rate ratio 1.38, 95% CI 1.35-1.41, p<.001). Non-Pediatric education articles were more highly cited than Pediatric education articles (marginal mean difference 10.6, 95% CI 9.7 - 11.4, p<.001) and Pediatric non-education articles were more highly cited than non-Pediatric non-education articles (marginal mean difference 1.7, 95% CI 1.1 - 2.3, p<.001).

Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that network-based medical education papers receive more citations than comparable non-network-based papers.