A scoping review of retracted publications in anesthesiology

A comprehensive overview of studies that assessed article retractions within the biomedical sciences

This study aims to provide a comprehensive overview of previous research that has investigated retractions within the biomedical fields and assess their methodological quality. We searched three major electronic databases for articles on retractions within the biomedical field: PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus. In total, 162 articles were included in the analysis. We evaluated their methodological quality using the items of "a measurement tool to assess systematic reviews" (AMSTAR-2) checklist and the Cochrane guidance. The studies had been published in more than 20 biomedical disciplines or fields of investigation, and two-thirds were published after 2017. Concerning methodology, none of the studies fulfilled all the suggested items; five studies did not meet any of the suggested AMSTAR-2 categories or Cochrane guidelines. The most prevalent reported reasons for retraction were fraud and plagiarism (21.0%). In summary, there has been increasing interest in assessing the characteristics and impact of retractions in the biomedical sciences. The studies cited types of misconduct more often than honest errors as a major reason for retraction. The methodological quality of the existing studies in this area appears to be suboptimal. Future investigators should improve upon this, particularly in the quality of the data selection and extraction.

Inappropriate Citation of Retracted Articles in Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine Publications

BACKGROUND

Retracted articles represent research withdrawn from the existing body of literature after publication. Research articles may be retracted for several reasons ranging from honest errors to intentional misconduct. They should not be used as reliable sources, and it is unclear why they are cited occasionally by other articles. This study hypothesized that several mechanisms may contribute to citing retracted literature and aimed to analyze the characteristics of articles citing retracted literature in anesthesiology and critical care.

METHODS

Using the Retraction Watch database, we retrieved retracted articles on anesthesiology and intensive care medicine up to August 16, 2021 and identified the manuscripts citing these retracted articles. A survey designed to investigate the reasons for citing these articles was sent to the corresponding authors of the citing manuscripts.

RESULTS

We identified 478 retracted articles, 220 (46%) of which were cited at least once. We contacted 1297 corresponding authors of the studies that cited these articles, 417 (32%) of whom responded to our survey and were included in the final analysis. The median number of authors in the analyzed articles was five, and the median elapsed time from retraction to citation was 3 years. Most of the corresponding authors (372, 89%) were unaware of the retracted status of the cited article, mainly because of inadequate notification of the retraction status in journals and/or databases and the use of stored copies.

CONCLUSIONS

The corresponding authors were generally unaware of the retraction of the cited article, usually because of inadequate identification of the retracted status in journals and/or web databases and the use of stored copies. Awareness of this phenomenon and rigorous control of the cited references before submitting a paper are of fundamental importance in research.