Department of Pharmacy, Harper University Hospital, Detroit, MI 48201, USA.
Am J Health Syst Pharm. 2011 Sep 15;68(18):1730-4. doi: 10.2146/ajhp100583.
The prevalence of honorary and ghost authors in articles published in 2009 in three peer-reviewed pharmacy journals was studied.
A 20-question survey was e-mailed to corresponding authors of articles with two or more authors published in 2009 in the American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy, Annals of Pharmacotherapy, and Pharmacotherapy. The survey solicited the following information: demographic characteristics of the corresponding author, information about the published article, information to determine whether any of the authors did not meet the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors criteria for authorship, and information to determine if an individual contributed substantially to the research or writing of the article but was not listed as an author.
Of the 491 corresponding authors to whom the survey was sent, 457 had a working e-mail address; 114 surveys were completed (24.9% response rate). Usable responses were provided by 112 authors. The prevalence of articles with honorary and ghost authors was 14.3% and 0.9%, respectively. Honorary authorship was more common in original research than review articles. Articles with honorary authors had longer bylines than articles without honorary authors (mean number of authors, 4.9 versus 3.7; p = 0.002). The proportion of articles with an honorary author was 1.9% for articles with fewer than 4 authors, 25% for articles with 4 or 5 authors, and 29.4% for articles with more than 5 authors (p = 0.001).
A survey sent to the corresponding authors of articles published in 2009 in three peer-reviewed pharmacy journals revealed that a substantial percentage of articles demonstrated evidence of honorary or ghost authorship.
研究 2009 年在三所同行评审的药学期刊上发表的文章中荣誉作者和幽灵作者的流行情况。
向 2009 年在美国《卫生系统药房杂志》、《药物治疗学年鉴》和《药物治疗学》上发表的有两位或两位以上作者的文章的通讯作者发送了一份 20 个问题的调查。该调查询问了以下信息：通讯作者的人口统计学特征、已发表文章的信息、确定是否有作者不符合国际医学期刊编辑委员会的作者标准的信息，以及确定是否有个人对研究或文章的撰写做出了实质性贡献但未被列为作者的信息。
在向 491 位通讯作者发送的调查中，有 457 位拥有有效的电子邮件地址；完成了 114 项调查（24.9%的回复率）。112 位作者提供了可用的回复。有荣誉作者和幽灵作者的文章的患病率分别为 14.3%和 0.9%。荣誉作者制在原始研究中比评论文章更为常见。有荣誉作者的文章比没有荣誉作者的文章的署名更长（平均作者人数分别为 4.9 人和 3.7 人；p=0.002）。有荣誉作者的文章比例在作者人数少于 4 人的文章中为 1.9%，在作者人数为 4 或 5 人的文章中为 25%，在作者人数多于 5 人的文章中为 29.4%（p=0.001）。
向 2009 年在三所同行评审的药学期刊上发表的文章的通讯作者发送的调查显示，相当大比例的文章存在荣誉作者或幽灵作者的证据。
