Self-citation policies in anaesthesiology journals

Sanfilippo, Filippo; Tigano, Stefano; Morgana, Alberto; Murabitol, Paolo; Astuto, Marinella

doi:10.1016/j.bja.2020.10.002

Cited by 10 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…Our investigations follows a similar assessment conducted in Anaesthesiology journals [2] and found lower prevalence of A-SC policies among CCM journals as compared to Anaesthesiology ones (14% vs 22%). This finding reinforces our belief that the argument of limiting the malpractice of inappropriate selfreferencing is still at embryonic level.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 81%

“…Interestingly, we found a significantly higher IF in CCM journal with policies on A-SC, and this may be a marker of higher publishing standards. Such finding is new, as we did not report differences in IF among Anaesthesiology journals according to presence of A-SC policies [2]. This result may support larger investigations, as the findings of single disciplines are likely influenced by a reduced sample size investigated.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 63%

“…Our previous investigation suggested that journals focusing on a specific topic of the discipline had a trend towards higher J-SC rate (25% vs 7% as compared to those with broad interest; p = 0.06) [2]. Accordingly, we performed a secondary analysis separating CCM journals in three sub-categories: (1) "multidisciplinary journals" (defined as journals focusing not only on CCM but also on other disciplines as Anaesthesiology, Respiratory Medicine, etc.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Inappropriate authors' self-promoting is a growing mal-practice [1], possibly prompted by the mounting scientific importance of author's metrics. We recently surveyed the submission guidelines of Anaesthesiology journals for the presence of policies discouraging author self-citations (A-SC) [2]. In parallel, we also evaluated the journals' self-citation (J-SC) practice, which may hinder attempts of the Editorial Board to increase the journal impact factor (IF).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Self-citation policies and journal self-citation rate among Critical Care Medicine journals

et al. 2021

Self Cite

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Background Inappropriate authors’ self-citation (A-SC) is a growing mal-practice possibly boosted by the raising importance given to author’s metrics. Similarly, also excessive journals’ self-citation (J-SC) practice may factitiously influence journal’s metrics (impact factor, IF). Evaluating the appropriateness of each self-citation remains challenging. Main body We evaluated the presence of policies discouraging A-SC in Critical Care Medicine (CCM) journals with IF. We also calculated the J-SC rate of these journals. In order to evaluate if J-SC rates are influenced by the focus of interest of CCM journals, we separated them in three sub-categories (“multidisciplinary”, “broad” or “topic-specific” CCM journals). We analyzed 35 CCM journals and only 5 (14.3%) discouraged excessive and inappropriate A-SC. The median IF was higher in CCM journals with A-SC policies [4.1 (3–12)] as compared to those without [2.5 (2–3.5); p = 0.02]. The J-SC rate was highly variable (0–35.4%), and not influenced by the presence of A-SC policies (p = 0.32). However, J-SC rate was different according to the focus of interest (p = 0.01): in particular, it was higher in “topic-specific” CCM journals [15.3 (8.8–23.3%)], followed by “broad” CCM [11.8 (4.8–17.9%)] and “multidisciplinary” journals [6.1 (3.6–9.1%)]. Conclusions A limited number of CCM journals have policies for limiting A-SC, and these have higher IF. The J-SC rate among CCM journals is highly variable and higher in “topic-specific” interest CCM journals. Excluding self-referencing practice from scientific metrics calculation could be valuable to tackle this scientific malpractice.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 81%

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 63%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Self-citation policies and journal self-citation rate among Critical Care Medicine journals

et al. 2021

Self Cite

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show abstract

“…Another issue is the proliferation of self-citation which has been further expanded to coordinated clusters of scientists massively citing each other (“citation farms”). Currently, only a minority of anaesthesiology and critical care medicine journals have policies to discourage inappropriate self-citations 9 , 10 .…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%