Retracted Publications in Medical Education: Systematic Review

Abstract

Introduction: Research Integrity is based on fundamental principles, including reliability, honesty, respect, and accountability. Practices that threaten these standards are classified as research misconduct and lead to retraction. Although several medical fields of study have raised retracted publications as a concern, main in the clinical area, this has not been explicitly investigatied in medical education. Hence, the main aim of this study is to examine the characteristics of retracted publications in medical education. Methodology: An eletronic search was performed during June 2023 in three databases: PubMed, Web of Science and Scopus, to identify all the retracted publications in medical education. Were extracted the characteristics of the authors, the publication journals, the citations and the retractions. Results: Out of 1005 articles initially identified and following the defined criteria, a total of 12 publications were included in this systematic review. 50% of the publications were published after 2020, being 42% of the studies from China. The average impact of factor of the various journals was 3.135 and the Journal of Heatlhcare Engineer published 25% of all publications. Retracted articles have been cited on average 11 times and the most highly cited retracted publication has been cited 54 times. Among all the citations found (136), 74 happened after retraction date and none of them was used as an example of misconduct or to refer to the retraction itself. The most common reasons for retraction were duplicate publication (25%) and systematic manipulation of the publication process (25%), followed by peer review concerns (17%). 58% of the publications have at least one online platform where there is no watermark or any other indication of the retraction. Conclusion: Although the number of retracted publications in medical education is small when compared with other areas of research, there is evidence that remains increasing. Retraction notices tend to be ambiguous and unclear with not enough information regarding the request or the reasons of retraction. All of this findings affects the truthfulness and transparency of scientific research and integrity.