Analysis of biomedical Spanish articles retracted between 1970 and 2018

Abstract

Background and objectiveTo analyse articles retracted due to authors’ misbehaviors contributes to know the scientific integrity situation of a discipline or a country. The largest worldwide database on retracted articles is Retraction Watch (RW). The objective was to know the reasons and features of the biomedical articles retracted of Spanish authors. Material and methodsA search was conducted in the RW database of 7 types of scientific articles from 9 biomedicine disciplines –biology, genetics, medicine, microbiology, neurosciences, nutrition, dentistry, public health and toxicology–, with at least one author working in a Spanish center, and published between 1970 and 2018. The features of the articles and the reasons for their retraction were recorded. ResultsOf the 18,621 retracted articles, 217 (1%) were from Spanish authors; 155 (74%) were of biomedicine and the types of article of interest. In a majority of cases, there were several reasons to retract an article. Scientific misconduct (fabrication, falsification, plagiarism) and duplication were involved in 23% and 35% of the cases, respectively. Only 8% of the articles were retracted due to errors of the authors or the journals. A dentist retracted 18 articles –all from the same journal and in the same year, 2018–, which accounts for 12% of all biomedicine retracted articles. ConclusionThe number of biomedicine retracted articles by Spanish authors is low. Scientific misconduct was a reason frequently involved, with few articles retracted by honest errors.