Cochrane reviews received more online attention than other systematic reviews—except when published in leading medical journals

Abstract Traditional bibliometric analyses focus on citation counts, co-authorships, and impact factors, which do not fully capture the real-world impact of an academic publication. An alternative is to consider metrics gathered by Altmetric, which provide insight into online attention and engagement. We aimed to examine the difference in the online reach of Cochrane reviews versus other systematic reviews through a bibliometric analysis and identify potential areas where online dissemination can be improved. We conducted a bibliometric analysis using data obtained through application programming interfaces from PubMed and Altmetric. We included reviews indexed from 1993 to 2022 in PubMed and tracked them in Altmetric until ultimo 2023. Data were analysed with mean difference [95% CI] and tested with Mann–Whitney U -test. The study included 11,913 Cochrane reviews and 173,915 other systematic reviews. Over time, Cochrane reviews showed an increase in Altmetric Attention Scores (1993–1997: median 3 [IQR 3–4], 2018–2022: median 19 [IQR 8–39]), while other systematic reviews remained steady (1993–1997: median 6 [IQR 3–13], 2018–2022: median 4 [IQR 1–14]). Compared with systematic reviews from historically leading medical journals Cochrane reviews received less attention (median difference between − 23 [95% CI − 23.1 to (− 22.9)] and − 6 [95% CI − 6.1 to (− 5.9)]). Cochrane reviews received more online attention and engagement than other systematic reviews, but have less reach than the historically leading medical journals. There is room for improvement for both Cochrane reviews and other systematic reviews on news, websites, policies, and Facebook platforms.