Recently I trawled through the history of the International Journal of Mental Health Nursing (IJMHN) – if you’re curious please see this editorial and this blog post.
Amongst the things revealed was the encouraging upward trend in the Impact Factor – a metric that reflects how many citations individual academic journals attract over a two year period. I was especially encouraged that a targeted social media strategy, together with the increased volume of articles, coincide with the Impact Factor upward trend since 2017.
Today this arrived in an email:
The 2022 Journal Citation Reports were released overnight, and I am very pleased to let you know that International Journal of Mental Health Nursing’s 2021 Impact Factor is 5.100 – a significant increase from 3.503 for 2020. This result places the Journal in the rankings: 2/125 (Nursing), 2/123 (Nursing (Social Science)), 57/155 (Psychiatry), 43/142 (Psychiatry (Social Science)).
Alison Bell, Journal Publishing Manager, Wiley, email of 29 June 2022
That is – to put it bluntly – bloody amazing!
Don’t believe me? Look at the chart below…
International Journal of Mental Health Nursing Impact Factor (2010 – 2021)
The journal had very humble beginnings. It was just an idea amongst a few Mental Health Nurses in Australia in July 1978. The first issue consisting of just two articles and editorial followed in September 1980 (source and source).
2021 data reveals this humble little journal is now ranked the second most impactful nursing journal on the planet.
Amazing.
Mental Health Nursing is punching above its weight. Mental Health Nursing ranks 5th as principal specialty, after Aged Care, Medical, Surgical and Peri-operative (source and source). Yet, we have a journal that rates 2nd most cited nursing journal, behind the International Journal of Nursing Studies (IJNS).
That’s something to celebrate – not just for the authors, reviewers and editors who put in the hard work to make it happen – but for all Mental Health Nurses.
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Please spread word about the impact of the International Journal of Mental Health Nursing – it’s a good news story 🙂
Paul McNamara, 29 June 2022
Short URL meta4RN.com/impact
The 2022 Journal Citation Reports were released overnight:
International Journal of Mental Health Nursing 2021 Impact Factor is 5.100 👍@IJMHN in the rankings: 2/125 (Nursing) 2/123 (Nursing (Social Science))
Since late 2016 I have been the Social Media Editor for the International Journal of Mental Health Nursing (IJMHN). If you’re interested in how that started, see meta4RN.com/IJMHN. The years that have followed have resulted in heaps of Tweets, Facebook posts and LinkedIn updates. As a byproduct, I’ve been keeping a closer eye on the journal than I would have otherwise, and stumbled across the fact that 2022 marks the anniversary of three important milestones in the journal’s history:
✅ 30 years as a fully refereed journal (1992) ✅ 20 years as the International Journal of Mental Health Nursing (2002) ✅ 10 years on social media (2012)
That observation has been explored and elaborated-on via my first (and probably only) editorial. Please read and share the article far and wide:
Below are some abbreviated highlights and a video summary from the editorial.
What’s in a name?
1980 Journal of the Australian Congress of Mental Health Nurses 1990 Australian Journal of Mental Health Nursing 1994 Australian and New Zealand Journal of Mental Health Nursing 2002 International Journal of Mental Health Nursing
1980 Dennis Cowell 1982 Ron Dee 1986 Owen Sollis 1987 Linda Salomons 1988 Andrew King 1990 Michael Clinton 1999 Michael Hazelton 2004 Brenda Happell 2015 Kim Usher
I have not attempted to discover the names of everyone who has served on the journal’s editorial board – there would many dozens (in the hundreds?) of people of who have contributed over the years. For what it’s worth, below is a May/June 2022 snapshot of the editorial board.
It is sensible to promote the work of IJMHN authors/researchers beyond the walled gardens of mental health nursing and academia. Below are links to the journal’s first excursions from behind the paywalls and exclusion zones that prevent people seeing the work and research of mental health nurses, and out to ‘the village square’ that is social media:
As I’ve argued previously (here and here), there’s not much value in spending weeks/months/years doing research, then pushing through the tedium of academic writing, and finally jumping through the flaming hoops of peer review only for your work to sit around unread and gathering dust. Authors and the institutions that support them should promote the paper to its greatest readership. The IJMHN has a strategy to promote mental health nursing’s research and work on social media – do you?
The first IJMHN Impact Factor was 1.427 (2010). At time of writing, the most recent available Impact Factor is 3.503 (2020). That’s pretty amazing – the IJMHN is the highest-ranked mental health/psychiatric nursing journal, and is rated as the 5th most cited nursing journal in the world (in a field of 124 nursing journals).
A targeted social media strategy together with the increased volume of articles coincide with the Impact Factor upward trend starting in 2017.
Time will need to pass before we know whether the most recently reported Impact Factor is an anomaly of the pandemic. I make this observation because, at time of writing, the three most cited IJMHN papers are all from 2020, and each of these highly-cited articles discuss contemporary-at-the-time COVID-19 issues (see the “Most Cited” tab here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/14470349).
Watch the video – it’s less than 2 minutes long, and has a cool musical accompaniment (‘Dashed Ambitions’ by Moby, kindly provided gratis via mobygratis.com).
About a decade ago, the old academic refrain to ‘publish or perish’ was updated to ‘be cited or perish’. A couple of days ago we published a paper arguing for a new call-to-arms: ‘share or perish’.
The truth is not too many people are perishing in the academic space. However, there is a pretty good indication that publishing in a journal that has a social media strategy makes a difference.
Want evidence? Have a look at these excerpts from our paper that compares the 18 months before the appointment of a social media editor for the International Journal of Mental Health Nursing (IJMHN) with the 18 months after that appointment.
First piece of evidence is in Figure 1 (below). Data from Twitonomy collated in 6‐monthly increments shows that after appointment of an IJMHN social media editor there was a 13½‐fold increase in tweets, and a 16‐fold increase in shared URLs.
Figure 1. Twitter Activity before and after the commencement of IJMHN social media editor on 01/01/17. Data from Twitonomy collated in 6‐monthly increments.
Figure 2 (below) plots 4 different data points.
It shows that Impressions increased from an average of 118 per day to 2839 per day. That’s a 24-fold increase on how many Twitter accounts potentially saw an @IJMHN Tweet each day.
Retweets increased from an average 62 retweets every 6 months to over 2140 retweets every 6 months. That’s a 35-fold increase in the number of time @IJMHN Tweets were shared – a remarkable increase in audience reach.
Similarly, the ‘likes’ that @IJMHN attracted increased from 45 times every 6 months to 2083 every 6 months. That’s a 46-fold increase in people acknowledging or showing approval to @IJMHN Tweets.
Most importantly, the number of times people clicked on the link (URL) of an IJMHN paper increased markedly too. It jumped from 129 to 2960 link clicks recorded every six months – a 23‐fold increase.
Figure 2. Twitter Impact before and after the commencement of IJMHN social media editor on 01/01/17. Data from Twitter Analytics collated in 6‐monthly increments.
The final data point I’ll present here is the Altmetric Attention Score (AAS), as shown in Figure 3 (below). The AAS increased from an average of 490 to 1317 every 6 months. This equates to an 169% increase in online attention and activity for IJMHN.
Figure 3. Altmetric Attention Score and Number of Articles published before and after the commencement of IJMHN social media editor on 01/01/17. Data from Altmetric collated in 6‐monthly increments.
Closing Remarks
This simplified summary of the paper misses some of the data and the description of context, the social media strategy and the reporting method. Please see the original paper for more info [link].
Please share the link to this blog and/or to our paper about stage one of the International Journal of Mental Health Nursing social media strategy.
Don’t forget: Share or Perish!
Citation
McNamara, P. and Usher, K. (2019), Share or perish: Social media and the International Journal of Mental Health Nursing. International Journal of Mental Health Nursing, online from 30/06/19, volume and issue yet to be allocated [I’ll update this when it’s in an issue] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/inm.12600 URL: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/inm.12600
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As always, feedback is welcomed via the comments section below.
This page serves as a place to collate the Prezi, YouTube video, abstract and list of references, data sources and visuals used for a presentation at the 44th ACMHN International Mental Health Nursing Conference.
Click on the pic to access the Prezi
Presenter Introductions
Paul McNamara is CNC with the Consultation Liaison Psychiatry Service at Cairns Hospital. Paul is also Social Media Editor of the International Journal of Mental Health Nursing.
Kim Usher is Professor and Head of School at the School of Health, University of New England. Kim is also Chief Editor of the International Journal of Mental Health Nursing.
Abstract
Traditionally the impact and reach of a specific journal article has been estimated through the measurement of how many times it is cited elsewhere in scholarly literature. Sometimes years could pass between conducting the original research, writing and refining drafts, submitting and reviewing manuscripts, the article being published, and subsequent researchers including this citation in their published reference list. The resulting time lag means that citations are a retrospective measurement of research impact.
There is however an alternative measure of research impact; a metric that is more immediate. This alternative does not rely on the passive hope that other people will see and share research findings, but allows interested parties to play a hand in generalised and targeted promotion of a published piece of research.
Charlene Li famously described social media not as a technology, but as a conversation (Israel, 2009). Now these online conversations can be quantified, and offer “real‐time” feedback to researchers/authors about the impact and reach of their published research.
In order to support these claims, we will provide an overview of the International Journal of Mental Health Nursing social media strategy. Altmetric data will be presented to demonstrate the measurable effects of this strategy. General information and specific examples will be shared so that researchers, authors, and the institutions that support their work, are exposed to strategies they could use to contribute to future Altmetric scores. In doing so, conference delegates who attend this presentation will be equipped with knowledge on how to improve the impact and reach of their publications on social media, and further their understanding of why this matters.
References, Data Sources + Presentation Visuals
Altmetric attention scores re top 5 IJMHN articles, data as at 18/09/18:
Mental healthcare staff well‐being and burnout: A narrative review of trends, causes, implications, and recommendations for future interventions https://wiley.altmetric.com/details/30485876
An integrative review exploring the physical and psychological harm inherent in using restraint in mental health inpatient settings https://wiley.altmetric.com/details/31986204
Altmetric attention scores re IJMHN impact from July 2015 to June 2018, MS Excel spreadsheet data courtesy of Kornelia Junge, Senior Research Manager, Wiley.
Altmetric logo via https://www.altmetric.com/about-us/logos/ (retrieved 06/10/2018)
Israel, S. (foreward by Li, C.). (2009). Twitter Ville: How businesses can thrive in the new global neighborhoods. New York: Portfolio.
Tweet activity examples as at 06/10/18
Combining #eMentalHealth intervention development with human computer interaction (HCI) design to enhance technology‐facilitated recovery for people with depression and/or anxiety conditions Amalie Søgaard Neilsen + @RhondaWilsonMHN https://twitter.com/ijmhn/status/1036177022811340800?s=21
The YouTube version of the presentation (slightly different to the conference version) can be viewed below and/or shared using this URL: https://youtu.be/vWSI3u4O2Bc
Presentation Tweets
Using Hootsuite, these Tweets using the conference hashtag (#ACMHN2018) were scheduled to be sent during the presentation. Look Mum! No Hands!
To cite this page:
McNamara, P. (2018). Conversations, not just citations, count: Social Media and the International Journal of Mental Health Nursing. Retrieved from https://meta4RN.com/count
To cite the presentation abstract:
McNamara, P. & Usher, K. (2018). Conversations, not just citations, count: Social Media and the International Journal of Mental Health Nursing. International Journal of Mental Health Nursing, Volume 27, Issue S1, Page 31 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/inm.12539
End
That’s it. Thanks for reading this far down the page. You’re probably the only one who’s bothered. 🙂
In keeping with the theme of the presentation, I’d be grateful if you share the page with your social networks.
As always, questions and feedback are welcomed via the comments section below.
Paul McNamara, 15 October 2018
Short URL meta4RN.com/count
Update: 20 October 2018
There was a flat spot in the original presentation where I struggled to convey clarity and sustain interest. In an effort to overcome this, I deleted a couple of slides from the original Prezi, modified another, and added the data/chart below. Thank you for your helpful critique and suggestions @StellaGRN.
Update: 27 October 2018
The Tweets that were scheduled to coincide with the presentation have now been embedded in the post.
Ever written an article about yourself as an act of blatant self promotion?
I have. Here it is:
Paul McNamara, photograph by Vera Fitzgerald
Cairns Nurse on Journal Editorial Board
Cairns CNC Paul McNamara has recently been appointed to the editorial board of the International Journal of Mental Health Nursing (IJMHN). IJMHN is now in its 26th volume, and has built a solid reputation over the last quarter century. The journal’s impact factor of 1.943 is a great achievement.
Paul was specifically invited to join the board to help develop and drive a social media strategy for IJMHN. “I’ve been very active in using social media in a professional sense for the last few years, and have presented at conferences and published about health professionals using social media.”, says Paul. “I guess that’s what caught the attention of the IJMHN Editor in Chief.”
“Twitter is my favourite platform for work-related social media. I think it will be the best fit for IJMHN. Twitter allows information to be shared with the whole world. If it’s good enough for the Pope, the US President and the Australian Prime Minister, maybe it’s good enough for mental health nurses too.”, joked Paul. “Twitter is where the influencers are. As US marketing guru Charlene Li said, ‘Twitter is not a technology. It’s a conversation. And it’s happening with or without you.’ It’s a professional trait of Mental Health Nurses to want to be part of the conversation.” When asked about other social media platforms, Paul said, “We’ll keep an eye on what develops: nothing is static on the internet. Facebook is too big to ignore, so we’ll certainly have a look at smartening-up IJMHN’s presence there too.”
Traditionally the success or failure of a journal article was measured by citations. The only way authors/researchers knew if their work was being read was when other authors referenced their paper. Now that IJMHN is purely an online publication (with an iPhone/iPad app), there is another metric that can be used – how often the article is shared on social media.
Social media can help drive visibility and brand awareness of the journal, and raise awareness of Mental Health Nursing’s work and contributions. For the first time in history, nurses have unmediated access to the public conversation via social media. “Social media provides a terrific opportunity for all health professionals to share and acquire information. It’s a fun way to do professional development.”, Paul said. “It’s also a good way to let people know who we are and what we do.” When asked for a recommendation about using social media, Paul said, “Just be aware that some of your patients, some of your colleagues, and some of your managers will Google your name. Make sure you’re in control of what they’ll find. Don’t be afraid. Be intentional. Make your digital footprint your CV.”
Paul’s professional digital footprint is built around the homophone “meta4RN”, which can be read as either “metaphor RN” or “meta for RN” – try Google or go to meta4RN.com to see what it’s all about.
This blatant piece of self-promotion could possibly also be included in a newsletter/magazine, but it’s one of those publications that’s organisation/member-specific. That means only a certain group of people will see it, and it will remain unknown to those not part of the organisation. A bit secretive, eh?
Maybe a modern reworking of the biblical “don’t hide you light under a bushel” thing could be, “don’t just do stuff – blog about it!”
Or maybe not.
As always your comments/feedback is welcome below.
meta4RN 