Letter: Honorary Authorship in Neurosurgical Literature: A Cross-sectional Analysis

Honorary authorships in leading gynecological literature

“…The current prevalence found, is similar to the prevalence found in 1996 suggesting a steady state of persisting HA in the gynecological field (Flanagin et al 1998). Nevertheless, when compared to other contemporary evaluations of HA in disciplines such as plastic surgery, neurosurgery, dermatology, radiology and spine surgery, the current prevalence of 11.2% could be deemed relatively low, yet alarming (Reinisch et al 2013;Eisenberg et al 2018;Gadjradj et al 2018;Kayapa et al 2018;Gadjradj et al 2019).…”

“…Based on previous studies, an online survey was conducted in April 2018 (Flanagin et al 1998;Wislar et al 2011;Gadjradj et al 2018). The survey was sent to the corresponding authors of each original article conducted in 2017 in five high-impact journals in the field of Obstetrics and Gynecology, namely; American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology (AJOG), BJOG: An International Journal Of Obstetrics (BJOG), Human Reproduction(HR), Gynecologic Oncology (GO) and Obstetrics & Gynecology (O&G).…”

The prevalence of honorary authorship in the dermatological literature

“…An online survey, based on previous studies, was conducted. [3][4][5] The survey covered: (i) the professional history of the respondent; (ii) use of guidelines in determining authorships with an explanation of the ICMJE criteria; and (iii) the presence of HAs in the article they (co)authored (questionnaire available from the authors on request). Furthermore, respondents were asked to state if a coauthor performed solely 'nonauthorship' tasks.…”

Honorary Authorships in the Ophthalmological Literature

“…Both of these percentages could be considered low when compared to rates reported in other disciplines such as radiology, neurosurgery, and dermatology. 2 3 6 Despite a growing trend of journals requiring authors to enlist contributions and growing awareness on HA throughout the years, HA seems to persist in biomedical research. Aside from reasons such as coercive authorship, reasons may also lie within the difference between practicing actual research and a theoretical guideline.…”

“…HA has been studied in fields such as radiology and high-impact biomedical journals, in which percentages of 21.0–62.9% can be found, with research from Asia and Europe containing higher rates of HA. 2 3 4 It is unknown if the ophthalmological field follows a similar trend.…”