Dr. John Archer Library and Archives, University of Regina, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada; Department of Epidemiology, Care and Public Health Research Institute, Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands.
Woodruff Health Sciences Library, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA.
J Clin Epidemiol. 2024 Sep;173:111427. doi: 10.1016/j.jclinepi.2024.111427. Epub 2024 Jun 14.
Retraction is intended to be a mechanism to correct the published body of knowledge when necessary due to fraudulent, fatally flawed, or ethically unacceptable publications. However, the success of this mechanism requires that retracted publications be consistently identified as such and that retraction notices contain sufficient information to understand what is being retracted and why. Our study investigated how clearly and consistently retracted publications in public health are being presented to researchers.
This is a cross-sectional study, using 441 retracted research publications in the field of public health. Records were retrieved for each of these publications from 11 resources, while retraction notices were retrieved from publisher websites and full-text aggregators. The identification of the retracted status of the publication was assessed using criteria from the Committee on Publication Ethics and the National Library of Medicine. The completeness of the associated retraction notices was assessed using criteria from Committee on Publication Ethics and Retraction Watch.
Two thousand eight hundred forty-one records for retracted publications were retrieved, of which less than half indicated that the article had been retracted. Less than 5% of publications were identified as retracted through all resources through which they were available. Within single resources, if and how retracted publications were identified varied. Retraction notices were frequently incomplete, with no notices meeting all the criteria.
The observed inconsistencies and incomplete notices pose a threat to the integrity of scientific publishing and highlight the need to better align with existing best practices to ensure more effective and transparent dissemination of information on retractions.
撤回旨在成为一种机制，当由于欺诈、致命缺陷或不道德的不可接受的出版物而有必要纠正已发表的知识体系。然而，这一机制的成功需要一致地识别撤回的出版物，并确保撤回通知包含足够的信息，以了解撤回的内容和原因。我们的研究调查了公共卫生领域的撤回出版物是如何清晰一致地呈现给研究人员的。
这是一项横断面研究，使用了公共卫生领域的 441 篇撤回的研究出版物。从 11 个资源中检索到这些出版物的每一条记录，而撤回通知则从出版商网站和全文聚合器中检索。使用出版伦理委员会和国家医学图书馆的标准评估出版物撤回状态的识别。使用出版伦理委员会和撤稿观察的标准评估相关撤回通知的完整性。
检索到 2841 篇撤回出版物的记录，其中不到一半的出版物表明已被撤回。不到 5%的出版物通过所有可用的资源被识别为撤回。在单一资源中，如果有，以及如何识别撤回的出版物也各不相同。撤回通知经常不完整，没有通知符合所有标准。
观察到的不一致和不完整的通知对科学出版的完整性构成威胁，并强调需要更好地与现有最佳实践保持一致，以确保更有效地和透明地传播有关撤回的信息。
