A retrospective analysis of reported errata in five leading medical journals in 2012

Abstract

BackgroundAlthough medical publications are frequently used as the source of information, the prevalence of errata remains unclear. The objective of this study was to examine peer-review and publication processes of medical journals as well as to determine the occurrence of reported errata in medical journals and timeliness in identifying and correcting errata.MethodsFive medical journals, New England Journal of Medicine, Annals of Internal Medicine, British Medical Journal, Journal of American Medical Association, and Lancet, were evaluated. The characteristics of these journals were obtained from editors’ survey. All these journals report errata noted in their prior publications. We retrospectively analyzed all errata reported from January 1, 2012, to December 31, 2012. The mean number of reported errata per issue, the most common errata, and the mean time to report errata were calculated.ResultsThe journals had high impact factors (14–51), received 3,200 to more than 15,000 submissions in 2012, and utilized two or more external reviewers and usually two or more editors for any accepted articles. All the journals edited the accepted articles, including references, figures, and tables for style. A mean of 1.3 articles with ≥1 errata was reported per issue (a total of 306 articles with errata in 226 issues). Errata in author's information, numeric errata, and errata in the figures and tables were the most common errata. The mean time to report the errata was 122 days.ConclusionThe high-impact journals, with extensive pre-publication review, reported relatively few errata per issue. The delay in reporting errata needs further exploration.

The relationship and incidence of three editorial notices in PubPeer: Errata, expressions of concern, and retractions

“…According to the delay in the publication of these notices, the results have shown that, on average, these documents take more than 3 years to be released. This finding contrasts with previous studies that observed dissimilar delays, from 122 (Bhatt et al ., 2014) and 211 days (Farrah & Rabb, 2019) in the case of errata to more than 3 years for retractions (Bhatt, 2019; Nath, Marcus, & Druss, 2006; Park, Lee, & Kwon, 2018; Rosenkrantz, 2016). These differences could be due to the great variability in the delay between article publication and the editorial notice because they depend on the type of error, discipline, journal, and so forth.…”

“…In any case, the first quantitative studies about errata are recent. Bhatt, Aryal, Panta, Mosalpuria, and Armitage (2014) analysed the errata of five top-tier medical journals, finding a mean of 1.3 errata per issue and a mean delay of 122 days for reporting an erratum. Hauptman et al (2014), studying 20 English-language general medicine and cardiovascular journals, observed an overall errata report occurrence of 4.2%.…”

Learning from mistakes: Teaching students about errata, corrigenda, and nonretraction corrections to the research literature.

“…also undermine confidence in research results and destabilize the basis from which science proceeds, not only potentially impeding the progress of science, but also potentially undermining the support of the greater community (Bhatt, Aryal, Panta, Mosalpuria, & Armitage, 2014;Grant, 2016;Kotzin & Schuyler, 1989;Peterson, 2010;Sabine, 1985;Thomsen & Resnik, 1995). Notably, this list of concerns closely parallels those raised over fraud and falsification (Furman, Jensen, & Murray, 2012) and other questionable research practices (John, Loewenstein, & Prelec, 2012).…”

“…Although many corrections describe errors that are quite minor (e.g., Ajiferuke & Adekannbi, 2020), some detail significant problems. Reviews of the health sciences literature, for example, have suggested that from about 15% to one third of published corrections refer to errors deemed crucial, major, or serious (Bhatt et al, 2014;Freeman & Spurlock, 1986;Hauptman et al, 2014;Molckovsky et al, 2011; Although an in-depth analysis of the frequency of corrections in the psychological literature is beyond the scope of this paper, a few illustrative examples may be helpful. To that end, we reviewed corrections indexed for the American Psychologist (the official journal of the American Psychological Association), Psychological Science (the flagship journal of the Association for Psychological Science), and Current Directions in Psychological Science (as the "Teaching Current Directions in Psychological Science" series is intended specifically to serve psychology instructors).…”

JCHIMP: A proud 4 year old with the best yet to come

“…There is a perspective piece by a sleep expert as a practical guide for general internists when reviewing sleep study reports ( 5 ). There are two important original research papers: a study on errata reported by high impact medical journals including comparisons to a similar study published by a high impact journal in September 2014 ( 6 ); and an important and provocative case series suggesting early discharge for post DKA patients may be safe and efficacious compared to a more slow and deliberate approach ( 7 ). A preliminary study suggests that community hospital internal medicine residents are not satisfied with current handoff methodology in the clinic setting ( 8 ).…”