Article retraction rates in selected MeSH term categories in PubMed published between 2010 and 2020.

IF 2.8 1区哲学 Q1 MEDICAL ETHICS Accountability in Research-Policies and Quality Assurance Pub Date : 2025-04-01 Epub Date: 2023-10-26 DOI:10.1080/08989621.2023.2272246

Robert Alexander, Christopher J Peterson, Shengping Yang, Kenneth Nugent

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Abstract

Background: Academic article retractions occur across all disciplines, though few studies have examined the association between research topics and retraction rates.

Objectives: We assessed and compared the rate of retraction across several important clinical research topics.

Methods: Information about the number of publications, the number of retractions, the retraction rate, and the time to retraction was collected for articles identified by 15 Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) terms. These articles were published between 1 January 2010 and 31 December 2020. The searches took place between 18 September 2021 and 24 October 2021. The MeSH terms were selected based on our clinical experience with the expectation that there will be multiple publications during the timeframe to use for the searches. Additional topics were selected based on the frequency of controversy in the public media and were identified by the Altmetric Top 100 report.

Results: The mean number of publications for all categories was 181,975 ± 332,245; the median number of publications was 67,991 [Q1, Q3; 31951.5, 138,981.5]. The mean number of retractions was 100.3 ± 251.3, and the median number of retractions was 22 [Q1, Q3; 6.5, 53]. The mean time to retraction ranged from 114 days to 1,409.5 days; the median was 857.3 days [Q1, Q3; 684.7, 1098.6], depending on the topic. The various MeSH term categories used in this study had significant differences in retraction rate and time to retraction. The "Neoplasms" category had the highest total number of retractions (993) and one of the highest retraction rates (75.4 per 100,000 publications).

Discussion: All PubMed categories analyzed in this study had retracted articles. The median time to retraction was 857 days. The long delays in some categories could contribute to potentially misleading information which might have adverse effects on clinical decisions in patient care and on research design.

Conclusion: Rate of retraction varies across research topics and further studies are needed to explore this relationship.

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PubMed在2010-2020年间发表的选定MeSH术语类别中的文章撤回率。

背景：学术论文撤回发生在所有学科中，尽管很少有研究考察研究主题与撤回率之间的关系。目的：我们评估并比较了几个重要临床研究主题的收回率。方法：收集由15个医学主题标题（MeSH）术语确定的文章的发表次数、撤回次数、撤回率和撤回时间的信息。这些文章发表于2010年1月1日至2020年12月31日期间。搜查发生在2021年9月18日至2021年10月24日之间。MeSH术语是根据我们的临床经验选择的，预计在此时间段内会有多篇出版物用于搜索。其他主题是根据公共媒体争议的频率选择的，并由Altmetric Top 100报告确定。结果：所有类别的平均出版物数量为181975份 ± 332245；发表文章的中位数为67991[Q1-Q3；31951.51338981.5]。平均撤回次数为100.3 ± 251.3，收回的中位数为22[Q1，Q3；6.5,53]。收回的平均时间为114 天至1409.5 天；中位数为857.3 天[Q1，Q3；684.71098.6]，具体取决于主题。本研究中使用的各种MeSH术语类别在收回率和收回时间方面存在显著差异。“肿瘤”类别的撤稿总数最高（993篇），撤稿率最高（每100000篇出版物中有75.4篇）。讨论：本研究中分析的所有PubMed类别都有撤稿文章。收回的中位时间为857 天。某些类别的长期延迟可能会导致潜在的误导性信息，这可能会对患者护理的临床决策和研究设计产生不利影响。结论：撤回率因研究主题而异，需要进一步研究来探索这种关系。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Accountability in Research-Policies and Quality Assurance MEDICAL ETHICS-

CiteScore

4.90

自引率

14.70%

发文量

审稿时长

>12 weeks

期刊介绍： Accountability in Research: Policies and Quality Assurance is devoted to the examination and critical analysis of systems for maximizing integrity in the conduct of research. It provides an interdisciplinary, international forum for the development of ethics, procedures, standards policies, and concepts to encourage the ethical conduct of research and to enhance the validity of research results. The journal welcomes views on advancing the integrity of research in the fields of general and multidisciplinary sciences, medicine, law, economics, statistics, management studies, public policy, politics, sociology, history, psychology, philosophy, ethics, and information science. All submitted manuscripts are subject to initial appraisal by the Editor, and if found suitable for further consideration, to peer review by independent, anonymous expert referees.