Publication misconduct and plagiarism retractions: a systematic, retrospective study

Abstract

Objectives:

To investigate whether plagiarism is more prevalent in publications retracted from the medical literature when first authors are affiliated with lower-income countries versus higher-income countries. Secondary objectives included investigating other factors associated with plagiarism (e.g., national language of the first author’s country affiliation, publication type, journal ranking).

Design:

Systematic, controlled, retrospective, bibliometric study.

Data source:

Retracted publications dataset in MEDLINE (search filters: English, human, January 1966–February 2008).

Data selection:

Retracted misconduct publications were classified according to the first author’s country affiliation, country income level, and country national language, publication type, and ranking of the publishing journal. Standardised definitions and data collection tools were used; data were analysed (odds ratio [OR], 95% confidence limits [CL], chi-squared tests) by an independent academic statistician.

Results:

Of the 213 retracted misconduct publications, 41.8% (89/213) were retracted for plagiarism, 52.1% (111/213) for falsification/fabrication, 2.3% (5/213) for author disputes, 2.3% (5/213) for ethical issues, and 1.4% (3/213) for unknown reasons. The OR (95% CL) of plagiarism retractions (other misconduct retractions as reference) were higher (P < 0.001) for first authors affiliated with lower-income versus higher-income countries (15.4 [4.5, 52.9]) and with non-English versus English national language countries (3.2 [1.8, 5.7]), for non-original research versus original research publications (8.4 [3.3, 21.3]), for case reports and series versus other original research types (4.2 [1.4, 13.0]), and for publications in low-ranked versus high-ranked journals (4.9 [2.4, 9.9]). Up until 2012, there were significantly (P < 0.007) fewer ‘serial offenders’ (first authors with >1 retraction) with publications retracted for plagiarism (11.5%, 9/78) than other types of misconduct (28.9%, 24/83).

Conclusions:

This is the first study to demonstrate that publications retracted for plagiarism are significantly associated with first authors affiliated with lower-income countries. These findings have implications for developing appropriate evidence-based strategies and allocation of resources to help mitigate plagiarism misconduct.

Keywords::

• Fabrication
• Falsification
• Plagiarism
• Retraction of publication as topic
• Scientific misconduct

Transparency

Declaration of funding

This study was funded, in part, by a research grant from ARCS Australia Ltd, an independent, not-for-profit organisation that provides professional development in therapeutics. ARCS Australia Ltd had no role in the development of the study design, collection, analysis, or interpretation of results, or in the writing of the report or in the decision to publish. All authors participated in the data collection, the interpretation of study results, and in the drafting, critical revision and approval of the final version of the manuscript. S.S. and K.L.W. developed the idea for the study, were involved in the study design, and are the guarantors.

Declaration of financial/other relationships

All authors have completed the Unified Competing Interest form at www.icmje.org/coi_disclosure.pdf (available on request from the corresponding author) and declare that (1) all authors have support (e.g., reimbursement of expenses for conference travel; payment for independent academic statistical services for their research) from their employer, ProScribe Medical Communications, for the submitted work; (2) the authors have no relationships with any company that might have an interest in the submitted work in the previous 3 years; (3) their spouses, partners, or children have no financial relationships that may be relevant to the submitted work; and (4) the authors are actively involved in national and/or international not-for-profit organisations that encourage ethical medical writing practices. All authors provide ethical medical writing support and training courses to authors from low-, middle-, and high-income countries.

CMRO peer reviewers may have received honoraria for their review work. The peer reviewers on this manuscript have disclosed that they have no relevant financial relationships.

Acknowledgements

An independent academic statistician, Varsha Parag MS (New Zealand Clinical Trials Research Unit, New Zealand), reviewed the study design and conducted all of the statistical analyses. The authors are grateful to Dr Rachel Cameron (formerly of ProScribe Medical Communications) for assistance with data collection.

Previous presentations: Findings from this study have been presented at the 7th Annual Meeting of the International Society of Medical Publication Professionals, Arlington, USA, 4–6 April 2011; and the 20th ARCS Australia Annual Scientific Congress, Sydney, Australia, 26–27 May 2011.