The prevalence of honorary authorship in the dermatological literature

Abstract

Linked Editorial: Anstey. Br J Dermatol 2018; 178:1229–1232.

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).…”

“…This study has some limitations which have to be acknowledged such as its retrospective character and a response rate of 28.6%. Our response rate, however, is comparable to those of similar online surveys and the significance of the response rate in regard to the quality of a survey is subject for debate (Groves and Peytcheva 2008;Johnson and Wislar 2012;Kayapa et al 2018;Gadjradj et al 2019). In more than two decades, the prevalence of HA seems to persist in the gynecological literature.…”

Perish or Publish Dilemma: Challenges to Responsible Authorship

“…No major differences seem to exist in the frequency of authorship misuse across different health care fields. Authorship misuse is rather equally spread across the medical journals within radiology (from 27.7% to 50.3%) [16], general surgery (from 15.0% to 44.0%) [9], dermatology (14.3% to 41.4%) [23], spine-dedicated journals (49.1%) [24], and nursing (42%) [25].…”

Our judgement is influenced by conflict of interest

“…Should we be sceptical about authorship of industry‐sponsored clinical trials? After all, the internationally agreed criteria for authorship are well known, yet they frequently appear to be flouted . A BJD research letter in this issue of the journal provides new data that confirm this to be a problem for dermatology . As Stern says, ‘There does not appear to be any clear way of avoiding conflict of interest’.…”

“…14,15 A BJD research letter in this issue of the journal provides new data that confirm this to be a problem for dermatology. 16 As Stern says, 'There does not appear to be any clear way of avoiding conflict of interest'. Open Payments in the U.S.A. is illuminating the dark shadows of financial conflict in that country.…”