Publication misconduct among medical professionals in India

Abstract

This study was planned as an exploratory study to determine the extent of occurrence of misconduct in publication (gift-authorship, ghost-authorship, falsification of data, fabrication of data, plagiarism, and duplication) amongst biomedical researchers. It was a questionnaire-based study, conducted at 9 institutions; 6 medical colleges (4 government-run and 2 private), 1 non-teaching government hospital, and 2 corporate hospitals, located in northern, central and southern India. The study was conducted between August 2012 and March 2013. 155 senior residents (<3 years after post-graduation) and young faculty members (<10 years after post-graduation) with at least five previous publications were administered a structured questionnaire, in which no identifying information was collected. In addition to personal characteristics, the information collected included their knowledge of publication ethics, their opinions about the prevalence of these practices among their colleagues, and details of any first-hand information on publication misconduct. 155 responses were included for analysis. 141 (91%) respondents agreed that they had some knowledge of publication ethics; but only 29% believed it was adequate. The most commonly observed misconduct was offering gift authorship, reported by 101 (65%); followed by alteration of data reported by 88 (56%). Plagiarism was observed by 83 respondents (53%); while 52 (33.5%) respondents had observed a colleague’s name being omitted from a paper to which she/he had significantly contributed. A majority of respondents in the present study reported witnessing publication misconduct, thereby revealing the common occurrence of this problem among Indian biomedical researchers.