Citation Impact was Highly Variable For Reporting Guidelines of Health Research: A Citation Analysis - ScienceDirect

"Our findings suggest that open article access to the reporting guideline had a significant impact on 2- and 5-year citation counts of reporting guidelines. This finding is in direct contrast to recent studies that have found no association between open access status and citation impact25,49. Open access publications provide researchers with free access, without subscription, payment or registration to permit further research development without restriction. However, although open access publication may increase downloads, these may be generated from readers who do not publish themselves or influence citations.50 As reporting guidelines are predominantly read by authors that are considering publication of research, our research findings would confirm that open access to reporting guidelines successfully increased their citations...."