Awareness of ethical violations in academic publishing among otolaryngologists: Uncontrolled analytical cross-sectional study

Abstract

To describe the relationship between demographics/training backgrounds of otolaryngologists and their knowledge of common ethical violations and to learn their thoughts on ethical violations. An online questionnaire with 29 items was sent to residents who completed at least 1 year and to ENT specialists. There were 17 Likert type questions in the survey. A total of 112 otolaryngologists answered the questionnaire. There were 49 female and 63 male respondents. P < 0.05 was accepted as statistically significant. Among the participants, 72.3% think that all authors are responsible for ethical violations. Among the participants, 93.8% are aware of the importance of referencing. Among the participants, 92.9% agree that figure cannot be used without referencing. Among the participants, 96.4% know a document written in another language cannot be published in native language without referencing. Among the participants, 87.5% are aware that financial support should be written in the article. While fabrication (110), authorship violation (109) and falsification (108) were the mostly picked type of violations, salamisation (80) and self-plagiarism (77) were the least known. Answers given to salamisation were statistically different according to age and academic title. Responses given to ethical violation types were not statistically significant between genders. However, there were statistically significant results among academic titles and among age groups. Considering ethical violations and age, the answers given by the age range of 55 and over and 25–35 were found to be statistically different for salamisation and plagiarism , by 36–45 and 55 and over for duplication. The difference between the responses of residents and professors, assistant professors and associate professors was significant for salamisation. The responses were also significant between residents and professors, associate professors and specialists for self-plagiarism and between residents and associate and assistant professors for plagiarism and financial conflict. When examining whether the answers given to the Likert scale differ by gender, there was a significant relationship between only Item 8 and gender. Although awareness of violations is generally high among otolaryngologists, training and compulsory courses seem the most important to close the knowledge gaps about ethical violations.