Fraud in nursing research: lessons learned from two case studies

Fraudulent participation is quickly becoming a common occurrence in nursing research, increasing in prevalence as online recruitment becomes commonplace.

This commentary describes two instances of fraudulent participation in doctoral dissertations as case studies to identify prevention strategies and establish educational recommendations.

The presented cases amplify the need for researchers, educators and postgraduate students to recognise the potential for fraud, especially when using online participant recruitment, to identify opportunities where evidence-based prevention strategies would have been beneficial to the investigators, and to learn from the missteps of others.

As online methods of participant recruitment continue to expand, the need to incorporate prevention practices into research curricula grows more critical. Fraud prevention strategies that researchers can use include close monitoring of survey data, identification of known tactics, using CAPTCHA software for online consent documents and choosing a standardised framework throughout postgraduate curricula.

Fraud prevention is a critical concept in research curricula. Faculties must incorporate evidence-based fraud prevention strategies into postgraduate education, providing students with the necessary resources and knowledge to prevent fraudulent participation in their studies. Adopting these strategies will enable novice researchers to gain the skills to produce valid, reliable results worthy of incorporation into clinical practice.