Prevalence and patterns of research misconduct among medical college faculties

Abstract

Background: With availability of the internet in all hands, the information on any topic is widely available. It is easy to access and many journals are open access. Hence it is tempting to easily copy paste the material to save time and serves as short cut for various purpose. Objective: To study prevalence and factors for research misconduct among medical college faculties Methods: Cross sectional study was carried out in two medical colleges in 58 faculty members using self-administered questionnaire. Confidentiality was ensured. Questionnaire consisted of questions pertaining to self-declaration of committing research misconduct. Next part was related to their opinions on factors, action to be taken and prevention related to research misconduct. Results: 68.9% knew what is plagiarism but only 8.6% knew types of plagiarism. Prevalence of research misconduct as faculty was 62.1%, (plagiarism=41.4%, fabrication=18.9%, falsification=1.7%). Prevalence of research misconduct as postgraduate was 91.4% (plagiarism=63.8%, fabrication=25.9% and falsification=1.7%). Lack of facilities and lack of time was the major response leading to research misconduct in 25.9% and 24.1% respectively. Most common action suggested was removal of published article and disciplinary warning by 37.9% of responses each. 8.6% of responses said that it is not possible to prevent research misconduct. Majority of responses were in favor of training followed by increasing awareness i.e. 56.9% and 51.7% respectively for prevention of plagiarism. Conclusion: Commitment of research misconduct was very high in publications as faculty and still more in dissertations as postgraduates. Lack of awareness, time, facilities, resources were responsible factors. Training and increasing awareness were the suggested measures.