Department of Epidemiology and Population Health, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, United States of America.
Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford (METRICS), Stanford School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2021 May 12;16(5):e0248625. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0248625. eCollection 2021.
The number of retracted articles has grown fast. However, the extent to which researchers and the public are made adequately aware of these retractions and how the media and social media respond to them remains unknown. Here, we aimed to evaluate the media and social media attention received by retracted articles and assess also the attention they receive post-retraction versus pre-retraction. We downloaded all records of retracted literature maintained by the Retraction Watch Database and originally published between January 1, 2010 to December 31, 2015. For all 3,008 retracted articles with a separate DOI for the original and its retraction, we downloaded the respective Altmetric Attention Score (AAS) (from Altmetric) and citation count (from Crossref), for the original article and its retraction notice on June 6, 2018. We also compared the AAS of a random sample of 572 retracted full journal articles available on PubMed to that of unretracted full articles matched from the same issue and journal. 1,687 (56.1%) of retracted research articles received some amount of Altmetric attention, and 165 (5.5%) were even considered popular (AAS>20). 31 (1.0%) of 2,953 with a record on Crossref received >100 citations by June 6, 2018. Popular articles received substantially more attention than their retraction, even after adjusting for attention received post-retraction (Median difference, 29; 95% CI, 17-61). Unreliable results were the most frequent reason for retraction of popular articles (32; 19%), while fake peer review was the most common reason (421; 15%) for the retraction of other articles. In comparison to matched articles, retracted articles tended to receive more Altmetric attention (23/31 matched groups; P-value, 0.01), even after adjusting for attention received post-retraction. Our findings reveal that retracted articles may receive high attention from media and social media and that for popular articles, pre-retraction attention far outweighs post-retraction attention.
被撤回的文章数量增长迅速。然而，研究人员和公众对这些撤回的了解程度以及媒体和社交媒体的反应程度仍不得而知。在这里，我们旨在评估被撤回的文章在媒体和社交媒体上获得的关注度，并评估它们在撤回后的关注度与撤回前的关注度。我们从 Retraction Watch 数据库中下载了所有 2010 年 1 月 1 日至 2015 年 12 月 31 日期间发布的撤回文献记录。对于所有 3008 篇有原始文章及其撤回文章单独 DOI 的被撤回文章，我们下载了相应的 Altmetric 关注度得分 (AAS)（来自 Altmetric）和引文计数（来自 Crossref），用于原始文章及其撤回通知在 2018 年 6 月 6 日。我们还比较了在 PubMed 上可用的随机样本 572 篇撤回的全文期刊文章的 AAS 与从同一期和期刊中匹配的未撤回的全文文章的 AAS。1687 篇（56.1%）被撤回的研究文章获得了一定程度的 Altmetric 关注度，其中 165 篇（5.5%）甚至被认为很受欢迎（AAS>20）。在 Crossref 上有记录的 2953 篇文章中，有 31 篇（1.0%）在 2018 年 6 月 6 日之前收到了>100 次引用。受欢迎的文章即使在考虑到撤回后的关注度后，也获得了远远超过撤回的关注度（中位数差异，29；95%CI，17-61）。不可靠的结果是撤回受欢迎文章的最常见原因（32；19%），而虚假同行评审是撤回其他文章的最常见原因（421；15%）。与匹配文章相比，撤回的文章往往会获得更多的 Altmetric 关注度（31 篇匹配组中的 23 篇；P 值<0.01），即使在考虑了撤回后的关注度后也是如此。我们的研究结果表明，被撤回的文章可能会受到媒体和社交媒体的高度关注，而对于受欢迎的文章，撤回前的关注度远远超过撤回后的关注度。
