Trends in the Number of Authors and Institutions in Papers Published in AJPE 2015-2019

Prevalence, Characteristics, and Trends in Retracted Spine Literature: 2000-2023

BACKGROUND

Retraction of scientific publications is an important check on scientific misconduct and serves to maintain the integrity of the scientific literature. The present study aims to examine the prevalence, trends, and characteristics of retracted spine literature across basic science and clinical spine literature.

METHODS

Multiple databases were queried for retracted papers relating to spine or spine surgery, between January 2000 and May 2023. Of 112,668 publications initially identified, 125 were ultimately included in the present study following screening by 2 independent reviewers. Journal of origin, reasons for retraction, date of publication, date of retraction, impact factor of journal, countries of research origin, and study design were collected for each included publication.

RESULTS

Clinical studies were the most frequent type of retracted publication (n = 70). The most common reason for retraction was fraud (n = 58), followed by plagiarism (n = 22), and peer review process manipulation (n = 16). Impact factors ranged from 0.3 to 11.1 with a median of 3.75. Average months from publication to retraction across all studies was 37.5 months. The higher the journal impact factor, the longer the amount of time between publication and retraction (P = 0.01). China (n = 63) was the country of origin of more than half of all retracted spine publications.

CONCLUSIONS

The rate of retractions has been increasing over the past 23 years, and clinical studies have been the most frequently retracted publication type. Clinicians treating disorders of the spine should be aware of these trends when relying on the clinical literature to inform their practice.

Trends in authorship characteristics and collaboration in pharmacy practice publications: 2011-2020

BACKGROUND

Research and scholarly publications are core expectations in academia that often require collaboration. While the number of authors per document (NAPD) has increased in every discipline, co-authorship culture and collaboration patterns vary among disciplines and countries.

OBJECTIVES

To determine the trends in the patterns and characteristics of authorship and collaborations in United States' pharmacy practice faculty publications from 2011 to 2020.

METHODS

Seven pharmacy practice journals were selected based on previous studies and data from Scimago Journal and Country Rank. Articles and reviews (document types) published during the decade were obtained from the Scopus database. Data cleaning and analysis were done using Microsoft Excel, R programming language packages, and VOSviewer. The Mann-Kendall trend test was used to determine the presence of (positive/negative) monotonic trends.

RESULTS

Eight thousand and fifty-nine documents published in the selected journals (82.7% articles; 17.3% reviews) by 18,575 unique authors during the decade were analyzed. In most documents (69.3-78.7%), senior/corresponding authors were first authors. There were statistically significant upward trends in the mean NAPD (3.8 ± 2.2 to 4.7 ± 2.4), median NAPD, and related bibliometric indices (degree of collaboration, collaborative index, and collaborative coefficient). Conversely, productivity (document per unique author) significantly trended downward and had a strong, negative correlation with mean NAPD. The proportion of one-author publications also trended downward (12.2%-3.6%). Evidence also supports a downward trend in institutional collaboration and an upward trend in international collaboration.

CONCLUSIONS

The assumption that last authors are senior authors does not hold in pharmacy practice publications. The increase in NAPD is not considered as authorship inflation, but rather an authorship "upcreep" that is driven by a survival strategy to publish together, predominantly within institutions rather than across institutions or countries. Therefore, faculty publication benchmarks should be crafted to mitigate the inverse relationship between collaboration and productivity, without discouraging collaboration.