Honorary authorship is highly prevalent in health sciences: systematic review and meta-analysis of surveys

Abstract

A systematic review and meta-analysis of survey research was conducted to estimate honorary authorship prevalence in health sciences. We searched PubMed, Lens.org, and Dimensions.ai. until January 5 2023. Methodological quality was assessed and quantitative syntheses were conducted. Nineteen surveys were included and rated as having low methodological quality. We found a pooled prevalence of 26% [95% CI 21–31](6 surveys, 2,758 respondents) of researchers that perceived co-author(s) as honorary on the publication at issue (when they were not referred to any authorship criteria). That prevalence was 18% [95% CI 15–21](11 surveys, 4,272 respondents) when researchers were referred to Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) authorship criteria, and 51% [95% CI 47–56](15 surveys, 5,111 respondents) when researchers were asked to declare their co-author(s) contributions on the publication at issue (and these were then compared to ICMJE criteria). 10% of researchers [95% CI 9–12](11 surveys, 3,663 respondents) reported being approached by others to include honorary author(s) on the publication at issue and 16% [95% CI 13–18](2 surveys, 823 respondents) admitted adding (an) honorary author(s). Survey research consistently indicates that honorary authorship in the health sciences is highly prevalent, however the quality of the surveys’ methods and reporting needs improvement. Registration and publication of the protocol. Our protocol was preregistered (https://osf.io/5nvar/) and published at: (https://systematicreviewsjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13643-022-01928-1)

Automatically listing senior members of departments as co-authors is highly prevalent in the health sciences: meta-analysis of survey research

“…the encouragement of their compliance and monitoring (4) possible (funding or legal) institutional or (inter)national penalties for those engaged in these practices. High prevalence of various types of authorship misuse were also reported in other systematic reviews [23,24].…”

“…Review item (Table 3) not to senior members in general, but speci cally to section or department heads and when pooled this led to an average of 25% [95% CI [22][23][24][25][26][27] of researchers (based on data from 3 surveys, and a total of 1,020 respondents). The corresponding forest plot is in the Appendix.…”

A simple form could prevent authorship issues in Cochrane manuscripts: A cohort study

“…However, a lower prevalence (9%−13%) has been reported in other journals [23,24]. Unfortunately, most surveys suffer from a low response rate [21,24].…”

“…Authorship issues are not only present in Cochrane publications. A metaanalysis estimated that 51% of the surveyed publications had gift authors when comparing contributions and ICMJE criteria [21], and a survey of corresponding authors in different journals found 40% gift authors [22]. However, a lower prevalence (9%−13%) has been reported in other journals [23,24].…”