Retraction of publications in nursing and midwifery research: A systematic review

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Abstract

Background

Rates of manuscript retraction in academic journals are increasing. Papers are retracted because of scientific misconduct or serious error. To date there have been no studies that have examined rates of retraction in nursing and midwifery journals.

Design

A systematic review of Journal Citation Report listed nursing science journals.

Data sources

The Medline database was searched systematically from January 1980 through July 2017, and www.retractionwatch.com was manually searched for relevant studies that met the inclusion criteria.

Review methods

Two researchers undertook title and abstract and full text screening. Data were extracted on the country of the corresponding author, journal title, impact factor, study design, year of retraction, number of citations after retraction, and reason for retraction. Journals retraction index was also calculated.

Results

Twenty-nine retracted papers published in nursing science journals were identified, the first in 2007. This represents 0.029% of all papers published in these journals since 2007. We observed a significant increase in the retraction rate of 0.44 per 10,000 publications per year (95% CI; 0.03–0.84, p = .037). There was a negative association between a journal’s retraction index and impact factor with a significant reduction in retraction index of −0.57 for a one-point increase in impact factor (95% CI; −1.05 to −0.09, p = .022). Duplicate publication was the most common reason for retraction (n = 18, 58%). The mean number of citations manuscripts received after retraction was seven, the highest was 52. Most (n = 27, 93.1%) of the retracted papers are still available online (with a watermark indicating they are retracted).

Conclusion

Compared to more established academic disciplines, rates of retraction in nursing and midwifery are low. Findings suggest that unsound research is not being identified and that the checks and balances incumbent in the scientific method are not working. In a clinical discipline, this is concerning and may indicate that research that should have been removed from the evidence base continues to influence nursing and midwifery care.

Section snippets

What is already known about the topic?

  • The number of papers published in science journals is increasing.

  • Seven hundred and forty-two scientific papers have been retracted since 2000.

  • In medicine and other science disciplines retraction is more common in journals with a higher impact factor.

What this paper adds

  • Twenty-nine papers published in nursing science journals have been retracted.

  • No study published in a nursing science journal has been retracted because of fraud.

  • Nursing journals with a higher impact factor are associated with fewer retractions.

Background

Retraction refers to the removal of a manuscript from the evidence base because the reported observations are unsound. In clinical professions (e.g. medicine, nursing and midwifery) retraction is a particularly important issue because this research should not influence clinical practice (Davis, 2012). Papers are retracted for two main reasons: scientific misconduct (that includes plagiarism and data fabrication) and serious errors (Crocker, 2011). The decision to retract a paper is made by

Methods

A systematic review of manuscripts published in JCR (Journal Citation Report) nursing science journals was undertaken. This review was limited to Journal Citation Report listed journals as they have an impact factor and are regarded as the key journals in nursing and midwifery. Reporting adheres to PRISMA reporting guidelines (Moher et al., 2009) and the methodological approach is based on the work of Bozzo et al. (2017) who reviewed retractions in cancer research. It was our intention to

Results

Fig. 1 shows the flow of papers through the study. In total, 55 retracted papers were identified of which 29 met the inclusion criteria. Retractions were issued by journals with (2016 impact factors) ranging from 0.52 to 3.75 (the highest in the nursing field). The average impact factor (extracted for year of publication) for journals that published a retracted paper was 1.19 (sd = 0.45). The majority of included papers were published in general nursing journals (n = 26, 89%). Three papers were

Discussion

The aim of the study was to determine the number and rate of retraction in nursing and midwifery science journals. There were 97,985 papers published over the last ten years. The increase in the number of nursing and midwifery publications, up 30% since 2007, is comparable to that seen in medicine (Bozzo et al., 2017) and science more generally (Van Noorden, 2011). The total number and rate of retraction in nursing and midwifery, however, seems remarkably low. Only 29 retracted papers were

Limitations

Although this is a systematic review, the decision was made at the start of the project not to include a list of the retracted papers as part of this manuscript. Our aim was to determine the number of retractions in nursing and midwifery and not to “name and shame” colleagues who have had papers retracted. In addition, we used one-year impact factors in this study. It may be more valid to use five-year impact factors however; this was not available for all journals.

Although we report

Conclusion

Compared to more established academic disciplines, rates of retraction in nursing and midwifery are extremely low. Our observations may suggest that unsound evidence is not being recognised and that the checks and balances incumbent in the scientific method are not working, as they should. Journal editors, reviewers and consumers of research need to be mindful of the potential for error or scientific misconduct in academic papers. They need to be prepared, and have the confidence, to raise

Conflict of interest

RG is the editor of the Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing, LM is the editor of Collegian and Associate Editor, Women and Birth, MJ is the associate editor the Australian Journal of Rural Health, DB is a member of the editorial board for the Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing and MC is the editor of the International Journal of Mental Health Nursing, Associate editor of Issues in Mental Health Nursing, Editorial Advisor for Nursing and Health Sciences, and

Contributions

RG conceived the study. SH developed the search strategy. AG retrieved the manuscripts and undertook the data extraction. AG, MC and DV undertook data analysis. RG, LM, SH, AG, MJ, DB, DV and MC contributed to the development of the study, to the interpretation of the findings and drafting the final version of the manuscript. All the authors read and approved the final draft.

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