Exploring the landscape of academic retractions in medicine: a comprehensive umbrella review

The escalating trend of academic article retractions over the last decades raises concerns about scientific integrity, but heterogeneity in retractions and reasons for them pose a major challenge. We aimed to comprehensively overview systematic reviews focusing on retractions in the biomedical literature.

We abstracted salient features and bibliometric details from shortlisted articles. The Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) Checklist for Systematic Reviews and Research Syntheses was used for validity appraisal.

A total of 11 reviews were included, published between 2016 and 2023, and reporting on a total of 1851 retracted studies. Several major reasons for retractions were identified, spanning both misconduct (e.g., falsification, duplication, plagiarism) and non-misconduct issues (e.g., unreliable data, publishing problems). Correlates include author-related factors (number of authors, nationality) and journal-related factors (impact factor), with repeat offenders contributing significantly. Impacts of retractions is profound, affecting scholarly credibility, public trust, and resource utilization.

In order to prevent retractions and amend their adverse effects, rigorous and transparent reporting standards, enhanced training in research ethics, strengthened peer review processes, and the establishment of collaborative and integrated research integrity offices are proposed.