Self-correction in biomedical publications and the scientific impact

Area of Science:

• Biomedical research integrity
• Scholarly publishing ethics

Background:

• Publication misconduct, including errors and fraud, poses a threat to scientific advancement.
• Understanding trends in corrections and retractions is crucial for maintaining the reliability of biomedical literature.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze the prevalence and patterns of mistakes and misconduct in biomedical journals.
• To investigate the association between publication output and citation metrics with publication errors.

Main Methods:

• Searched PubMed for errata, duplicate, and retracted publications up to January 2014.
• Utilized SCImago Journal and Country Rank data to analyze publication activity and citation profiles.
• Correlated publication counts and h-index values with duplicate and retracted publications.

Main Results:

• Identified 2597 correction items, with a significant increase in 2013, largely from PLOS One.
• Documented 1086 duplicate publications, with reviews, original studies, and case reports being most common.
• Found strong associations between national publication output and citation metrics with duplicate and retracted publications.

Conclusions:

• Increased self-correction in biomedicine reflects heightened reader and author scrutiny of evidence-based information.
• Digitization and open access models appear to be factors contributing to the rise in correction notices and retractions.