Determining authorship in multicenter trials: a systematic review

Abstract

The practical and ethical issues in determining authorship in multicenter trials raise significant and unique challenges. This systematic review examines methods of assigning authorship in multicenter clinical trials. A literature search (October 2009) was conducted to identify articles with the terms 'authorship' and 'clinical trial,' 'multicenter' or 'multicentre.' Abstracts were reviewed for potential relevance and the complete manuscript was obtained where indicated. Additional articles were identified by a review of the reference list from sourced articles. Methods for determining authorship were reviewed in terms of practicality, fairness and the time course for decision-making. Eight methods for determining authorship were identified: four used a scoring system, two articles contained guidelines with reference to scoring systems and two articles outlined general guidelines. All methods attempted to provide a fair and practical approach and appeared to achieve this to varying degrees. No one method was applicable across all multicenter trials. The authors propose a guide for determining authorship based on the methods identified and the number of collaborators and anticipated publications. For smaller collaborative groups (e.g. <10 persons), byline inclusion of all authors based on relative contributions is recommended. For larger collaborations (e.g. ≥ 10 persons), authorship guidelines should be explicit from the outset of the trial with consideration of relevant scoring systems.

Equal contributions and credit given to authors in critical care medicine journals during a 10-yr period*

“…Potential benefits in these studies include the ability to achieve adequate sample sizes for less common conditions, faster accrual rates, the depth and range of expertise available in the design and conduction of the trial, ability to attract funding, reduction in the likelihood of scientific fraud, and increased generalizability of the results (6). However, the number of individuals involved in planning, enrollment, and data acquisition is potentially large, thus increasing the complexity around determining authorship in resultant publications (7). Therefore, it is reasonable that certain authors are given equal credit in these studies when the authors had similar contributions.…”

“…Another contributing factor to the increasing practice of giving equal credit to certain authors is perhaps the result of abuse by including undeserved individuals who had made insufficient contributions. For the individual collaborator, authorship is highly prized, with a publication track record linked to success in research funding, academic merit, and promotion (7). In general, the first and last authors receive most of credit and are commonly used for measuring research productivity.…”

Authorship in a multicenter clinical trial: The Heart Failure—A Controlled Trial Investigating Outcomes of Exercise Training (HF-ACTION) Authorship and Publication (HAP) Scoring System Results

“…However, to our knowledge it is the first to attempt to quantify investigators’ contributions to the study to assign authorship 4 . The HAP scoring system resulted in a large number of articles and a wide spread of authorship using a highly transparent process.…”

Múltipla autoria: crescimento ou bolha inflacionária?

“…Publications 4,6,7,16,20 make revisions of proposed solutions, trying to offer control models to limit the possibility of undue authorship. Such solutions are divided into two major groups, both based on exhaustive lists of possible actions (contributions) in the making of an article.…”