Finding Medical Photographs of Patients Online: Randomized, Cross-Sectional Study.

BACKGROUND: Photographs from medical case reports published in academic journals have previously been found in online image search results. This means that patient photographs circulate beyond the original journal website and can be freely accessed online. While this raises ethical and legal concerns, no systematic study has documented how often this occurs. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this cross-sectional study was to provide systematic evidence that patient photographs from case reports published in medical journals appear in Google Images search results. Research questions included the following: (1) what percentage of patient medical photographs published in case reports were found in Google Images search results? (2) what was the relationship between open access publication status and image availability? and (3) did the odds of finding patient photographs on third-party websites differ between searches conducted in 2020 and 2022? METHODS: The main outcome measure assessed whether at least 1 photograph from each case report was found on Google Images when using a structured search. Secondary outcome variables included the image source and the availability of images on third-party websites over time. The characteristics of medical images were described using summary statistics. The association between the source of full-text availability and image availability on Google Images was tested using logistic regressions. Finally, we examined the trend of finding patient photographs using generalized estimating equations. RESULTS: From a random sample of 585 case reports indexed in PubMed, 186 contained patient photographs, for a total of 598 distinct images. For 142 (76.3%) out of 186 case reports, at least 1 photograph was found in Google Images search results. A total of 18.3% (110/598) of photographs included eye, face, or full body, including 10.9% (65/598) that could potentially identify the patient. The odds of finding an image from the case report online were higher if the full-text paper was available on ResearchGate (odds ratio [OR] 9.16, 95% CI 2.71-31.02), PubMed Central (OR 7.90, 95% CI 2.33-26.77), or Google Scholar (OR 6.07, 95% CI 2.77-13.29) than if the full-text was available solely through an open access journal (OR 5.33, 95% CI 2.31-12.28). However, all factors contributed to an increased risk of locating patient images online. Compared with the search in 2020, patient photographs were less likely to be found on third-party websites based on the 2022 search results (OR 0.61, 95% Cl 0.43-0.87). CONCLUSIONS: A high proportion of medical photographs from case reports was found on Google Images, raising ethical concerns with policy and practice implications. Journal publishers and corporations such as Google are best positioned to develop an effective remedy. Until then, it is crucial that patients are adequately informed about the potential risks and benefits of providing consent for clinicians to publish their images in medical journals.

Navigating the Seas of Publications in A Medical Journal: The Role of an Editor.

The world of scientific publishing is a dynamic ecosystem where groundbreaking research and discoveries find their way into the public domain. Scientific journals play a pivotal role in disseminating new knowledge, shaping the healthcare landscape, and influencing clinical practice. Behind the scenes, editors serve as gatekeepers, meticulously reviewing and selecting articles to ensure the highest standards of quality and relevance. This article offers insights into the role of editors regarding publications in medical journals, shedding light on the challenges, responsibilities, and evolving trends in this crucial process.

Protecting and promoting editorial independence.

We argue that editorial independence, through robust practice of publication ethics and research integrity, promotes good science and prevents bad science. We elucidate the concept of research integrity, and then discuss the dimensions of editorial independence. Best practice guidelines exist, but compliance with these guidelines varies. Therefore, we make recommendations for protecting and strengthening editorial independence.

Faculty-student authorship practices in nursing: Cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND: Academic institutions often encourage nursing students to submit scholarly work for publication. Oftentimes, faculty and students collaborate on scholarship during a student's enrollment in a nursing program. Although there are benefits to the faculty and students, there are also areas of conflict due to the lack of professional and institutional guidelines to ensure equitable gains. PURPOSE: The study explored authorship practices among nursing institutions in order to identify criteria for faculty-student authorship guidelines and policies. METHODS: A descriptive and cross-sectional study was utilized to describe nursing faculty's perception of best practices for faculty-student authorship and their level of comfort with specific components of the authorship process. RESULTS: There were several criteria that the faculty identified as warranting authorship credit, such as completing the review of the literature or making substantial contributions to analysis and interpretation of data. On the other hand, there were several criteria the faculty felt neutral or did not warrant authorship credit, such as providing general administration support or writing assistance. CONCLUSION: Most faculty felt comfortable discussing authorship criteria with students. However, their responses highlighted complexities inherent in faculty-student relationships when collaborating on scholarship. This accentuated the need for the nursing profession and institutions to develop and implement faculty-student authorship guidelines.

25 años del asunto di bella: ¿qué enseñanzas éticas nos deja? / 25 years from di bella affair: what ethical lessons does it leave us?

Hace 25 años, en 1998, ante la demanda de que la Sanidad Pública asumiera el coste del tratamiento alternativo del cáncer propuesto por el Profesor Luigi Di Bella -que incluía hormonas, vitaminas y, en ocasiones, quimioterapia- el Parlamento italiano aprobó realizar ensayos clínicos con pacientes oncológicos avanzados para conocer la eficacia de esta terapia. Aunque los estudios en fase II paralelos que se llevaron a cabo en diversos tumores demostraron la falta de actividad del esquema, algunos profesionales han seguido empleándolo desde entonces y han publicado unos resultados aparentemente prometedores en diversas revistas científicas. Este ejemplo real plantea tres escenarios éticos interesantes. El primero es el de la ética de los tratamientos alternativos propuestos por profesionales de la medicina o del ámbito académico que no consiguen distinguir entre hipótesis y eficacia real, algo que influye también en las ex pectativas que genera en pacientes y familiares que deben afrontar una patología potencialmente mortal con pocas o ninguna expectativa de curación con los tratamientos tradicionales. El segundo escenario es el del diseño de ensayos clínicos y la buena práctica para llevarlos a cabo, que fue también motivo de debate en relación con el método Di Bella. Y el último, la ética de las publicaciones científicas. Desde el año 2000, los seguidores de Di Bella han publicado 13 trabajos de calidad limitada con series de pacientes, la mayoría de ellos en una revista de pago por publicación en cuyo comité de editores se encuentra Giuseppe Di Bella, hijo del profesor Di Bella (AU)

Twenty-five years ago, in 1998, the Italian Parliament approved to implement clinical trials in patients with advanced cancer to know the efficacy of an alternative cancer treatment that associated hormones, vitamins and, occasionally, chemotherapy proposed by Professor Luigi Di Bella. It was the answer to people demanding Public Health assume the cost of this therapy. Although parallel phase II trials in various tumors demonstrated the lack of activity, some professionals have continued to use this method since then and have published apparently promising results a few various scientific journals. This real example raises three interesting ethical scenarios. The first one is the ethics of alternative treatments proposed by medical pro fessionals or from the academic field. In these cases, the difficulty in differentiating between hypothesis and real efficacy. This problem impacts on patients and relatives’ expectations who must face a potentially fatal disease with little or no hope of a cure with traditional treatments. The second scenario is the design and good practice in the development of clinical trials, which was also the subject of debate in relation to the Di Bella method. And the last one, the ethics of scientific publications. Di Bella’s followers published since 2000 12 papers with limited quality on series of patients treated with his method, the majority in a pay-per-publication journal of which Giuseppe Di Bella, son of Professor Di Bella, is included in the board of editors (AU)

ChatGPT: ethical concerns and challenges in academics and research.

INTRODUCTION: The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) has presented several opportunities to ease human work. AI applications are available for almost every domain of life. A new technology, Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer (ChatGPT), was introduced by OpenAI in November 2022, and has become a topic of discussion across the world. ChatGPT-3 has brought many opportunities, as well as ethical and privacy considerations. ChatGPT is a large language model (LLM) which has been trained on the events that happened until 2021. The use of AI and its assisted technologies in scientific writing is against research and publication ethics. Therefore, policies and guidelines need to be developed over the use of such tools in scientific writing. The main objective of the present study was to highlight the use of AI and AI assisted technologies such as the ChatGPT and other chatbots in the scientific writing and in the research domain resulting in bias, spread of inaccurate information and plagiarism. METHODOLOGY: Experiments were designed to test the accuracy of ChatGPT when used in research and academic writing. RESULTS: The information provided by ChatGPT was inaccurate and may have far-reaching implications in the field of medical science and engineering. Critical thinking should be encouraged among researchers to raise awareness about the associated privacy and ethical risks. CONCLUSIONS: Regulations for ethical and privacy concerns related to the use of ChatGPT in academics and research need to be developed.

The relationship between methodological quality and the use of retracted publications in evidence syntheses.

BACKGROUND: Evidence syntheses cite retracted publications. However, citation is not necessarily endorsement, as authors may be criticizing or refuting its findings. We investigated the sentiment of these citations-whether they were critical or supportive-and associations with the methodological quality of the evidence synthesis, reason for the retraction, and time between publication and retraction. METHODS: Using a sample of 286 evidence syntheses containing 324 citations to retracted publications in the field of pharmacy, we used AMSTAR-2 to assess methodological quality. We used scite.ai and a human screener to determine citation sentiment. We conducted a Pearson's chi-square test to assess associations between citation sentiment, methodological quality, and reason for retraction, and one-way ANOVAs to investigate association between time, methodological quality, and citation sentiment. RESULTS: Almost 70% of the evidence syntheses in our sample were of critically low quality. We found that these critically low-quality evidence syntheses were more associated with positive statements while high-quality evidence syntheses were more associated with negative citation of retracted publications. In our sample of 324 citations, 20.4% of citations to retracted publications noted that the publication had been retracted. CONCLUSION: The association between high-quality evidence syntheses and recognition of a publication's retracted status may indicate that best practices are sufficient. However, the volume of critically low-quality evidence syntheses ultimately perpetuates the citation of retracted publications with no indication of their retracted status. Strengthening journal requirements around the quality of evidence syntheses may lessen the inappropriate citation of retracted publications.

The Acceptable Text Similarity Level in Manuscripts Submitted to Scientific Journals.

Plagiarism is among commonly identified scientific misconducts in submitted manuscripts. Some journals routinely check the level of text similarity in the submitted manuscripts at the time of submission and reject the submission on the fly if the text similarity score exceeds a set cut-off value (e.g., 20%). Herein, I present a manuscript with 32% text similarity, yet without any instances of text plagiarism. This underlines the fact that text similarity is not necessarily tantamount to text plagiarism. Every instance of text similarity should be examined with scrutiny by a trained person in the editorial office. A high text similarity score does not always imply plagiarism; a low score, on the other hand, does not guarantee absence of plagiarism. There is no cut-off for text similarity to imply text plagiarism.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion on Editorial Boards of Global Health Journals.

Journals have been described as "duty bearers" of upholding fundamental ethical principles that are essential for maintaining the ethical integrity of newly generated and disseminated knowledge. To play our part, we evaluated diversity and inclusion in the leadership and management of global and international health journals. We developed Journal Diversity Index (JDI) to measure three parameters of diversity and representation (gender, geographic, socioeconomic status). Relevant information regarding editorial board members of systematically screened journals was sequentially extracted and job titles were categorized into five editorial roles. Chi-squared test was utilized to study associations between gender and geographic distribution of editors along with the Medline indexing of the journal and its impact factor. Out of 43 journals included, 62.7% were published from two high-income countries. Women comprised 44% of the total editors. Among all the editorial board members, we did not find any information suggesting the representation of non-binary and transgender individuals. Furthermore, 68.2% of editors were based in high-income countries with 67.3% of the editors belonging to the Global North. This disparity in geographic region and socioeconomic level was observed across all five editorial roles. Among all women editors, more than 70% worked in non-Medline and non-impact factor journals. Only two journals scored "excellent" on JDI. Despite the continuous evolution of the definition of global health ethics, marginalized individuals, and their perspectives remain underrepresented in this field. Thus, we call for swift action regarding the decentralization and redistribution of global and international health journal editorial boards. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s41649-023-00243-8.

Poor Representation of Developing Countries in Editorial Boards of Leading Obstetrics and Gynaecology Journals.

Evidence suggests a limited contribution to the total research output in leading obstetrics and gynaecology journals by researchers from the developing world. Editorial bias, quality of scientific research produced and language barriers have been attributed as possible causes for this phenomenon. The aim of this study was to understand the prevalence of editorial board members based out of low and lower-middle income countries in leading journals in the field of obstetrics and gynaecology. The top 21 journals in the field of obstetrics and gynaecology were selected based on their impact factor, SCImago ranking and literature search. The composition of the editorial boards of these journals was studied based on World Bank Income Criteria to understand the representation status of researchers from low and lower-middle income countries. A total of 1315 board members make up the editorial composition of leading obstetrics and gynaecology journals. The majority of these editors belong to high-income countries (n = 1148; 87.3%). Low (n = 6; 0.45%) and lower-middle income (n = 55; 4.18%) countries make up for a very minuscule proportion of editorial board members. Only a meagre 9 out of 21 journals have editorial board members from these countries (42.85%). Low and low-middle countries have poor representation in the editorial boards of leading obstetrics and gynaecology journals. Poor representation in research from these countries has grave consequences for a large proportion of the global population and multidisciplinary collaborative efforts must be taken to rapidly change this statistic with immediate effect.

Consideraciones éticas en la investigación etnográfica institucional

Artículo de revisión que responde al objetivo de identificar las principales consideraciones éticas que los investigadores han de contemplar en el desarrollo de una investigación etnográfica institucional. Se realizó una revisión del estado del arte, analizando 298 tesis de posgrado. Tras la aplicación de criterios de inclusión, exclusión y eliminación de duplicados, quedaron 14 documentos, los que conformaron la muestra final. Las consideraciones éticas identificadas se estructuraron en tres grupos "planificación y aspectos metodológicos", "recolección de los datos" y "análisis, presentación de los resultados y manejo de los datos tras la finalización del estudio". Los resultados identificados se asocian a la esencia distintiva de la etnografía institucional como enfoque incipiente, pues uno de los aspectos que se aprenden en dicha etnografía es el sentido de observar cómo las personas organizan las cosas, lo que está directamente asociado a la forma de recolección de los datos desarrollada por el investigador. Conclusión: se identificaron 22 consideraciones, siendo la recolección de los datos la que presentó más elementos descritos; se revela la importancia del anonimato de los informantes, terceros involucrados y de la misma institución donde se desarrolla el estudio, pues fue la principal consideración ética distintiva del enfoque incipiente.

This review article aims to identify the primary ethical considerations researchers must have in conducting institutional ethnographic research. A state-of-the-art review was conducted, analyzing 298 theses/dissertations. After applying inclusion, exclusion, and duplicate elimination criteria, 14 documents formed the final sample. The ethical considerations identified were structured into three groups: "planning and methodological aspects," "data collection," and "analysis, result presentation, and data management after study completion." The results identified are associated with the distinctive essence of institutional ethnography as an incipient approach since one of the aspects learned in such ethnography is observing how people organize things, which is directly associated with the researcher's form of data collection. Twenty-two considerations were identified, with data collection having the most elements described. Moreover, the importance of the anonymity of informants, third parties involved, and the institution where the study is a distinguishing ethical consideration of the incipient approach.

Artigo de revisão que responde ao objetivo de identificar as principais considerações éticas que os pesquisadores devem ter no desenvolvimento de uma pesquisa etnográfica institucional. Foi efetuada uma revisão do estado da arte, a partir da qual foram analisadas 298 teses de pós-graduação. Após a aplicação de critérios de inclusão e exclusão e a eliminação de duplicados, restaram 14 documentos, que constituíram a amostra final. As considerações éticas identificadas foram estruturadas em três grupos: "planejamento e aspectos metodológicos", "coleta de dados" e "análise, apresentação dos resultados e tratamento dos dados após a conclusão do estudo". Os resultados identificados estão associados à essência distintiva da etnografia institucional enquanto abordagem incipiente, uma vez que um dos aspectos apreendidos nessa etnografia é o sentido de observar como as pessoas organizam as coisas, o que está diretamente associado à forma de coleta de dados desenvolvida pelo pesquisador. Conclusões: foram identificadas 22 considerações, sendo que a coleta de dados foi a que apresentou mais elementos descritos; destaca-se a importância do anonimato dos informantes, dos terceiros envolvidos e da mesma instituição onde se desenvolveu o estudo, pois foram as principais considerações éticas distintivas da abordagem incipiente.

How Race, Ethnicity, and Social Determinants of Health Are Reported in Three European Pediatric Journals.

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate how geography, ethnicity, ancestry, and race or religion (GEAR) and social determinants of health (SDOH) data are reported and discussed in 3 European pediatric journals and to compare practices between European and American journals. STUDY DESIGN: A retrospective analysis of all original articles that enrolled children (<18 years old) published from January through June 2021 in 3 European pediatric journals: Archives of Disease in Childhood, European Journal of Pediatrics, and Acta Paediatrica. We categorized SDOH using the 5 domains as outlined by the US Healthy People 2030 framework. For each article, we recorded whether GEAR and SDOH were reported in the results and interpreted in the discussion sections. We then compared these European data by χ2 tests with data from 3 US pediatric journals. RESULTS: Of the 320 studied articles, 64 (20%) and 80 (25%) reported GEAR and SDOH data in the results sections, respectively. Of those articles, 32 (50%) and 53 (66.3%) studies interpreted the GEAR and SDOH data in their discussion sections, respectively. On average, articles reported factors from 1.2 GEAR and 1.9 SDOH categories with great variability in the variables collected and data groupings. Articles published in European journals were less likely to report GEAR and SDOH than articles published in US journals (P < .001 for both). CONCLUSIONS: Articles published in European pediatric journals did not commonly report either GEAR or SDOH, and there was wide variation in how data were collected and reported. Harmonization of categories will allow for more accurate interstudy comparisons.

Reporting of conflict of interests, source of funding, and ethics committee approval in randomized trials of three clinical specialties published in Spanish language

Background: Confidence in the results reported by randomized clinical trials (RCTs) depends mainly on the internal validity of the trial and its conduct, but also on other aspects related to health research such as the complete reporting of conflicts of interest (COI), funding sources and approval by ethics committees. Bias in the study results may arise from any one of these elements. Prior studies have explored the reporting of these items in the medical literature, but there are no reports on RCTs published in Spanish and Latin American journals. This study aimed to evaluate the reporting of COIs, funding sources, and approval by ethics committees of RCTs published in Spanish and Latin American journals in dentistry, geriatrics and neurology. Methods: We did a systematic retrospective survey of all RCTs published from 1990 to 2018 in dentistry, neurology, and geriatrics journals published in Spain and Latin America and included in the BADERI database (Iberoamerican journals and trials database by its initials in Spanish). We completed with hand searching. We included RCTs with a recoverable full text published between 1990 and 2018. We extracted data on sources of funding, COI statements, and ethics reviews. The extraction of these items in the RCTs included was done independently by two pairs of reviewers and in parallel for each article, with a third independent reviewer resolving discrepancies. We analysed compliance for each item. Results: We identified RCTs in 69 journals from Spain and Latin American countries. Dentistry accounted for 75% (n = 52) of the journals, neurology 20.6% (n = 14), and geriatrics 4.4% (n = 3). Of the total number of RCTs included in this study (n = 392), only 102 (26%) reported the presence or absence of a COI, 103 (26%) studies reported funding, and 43 (36%) included the ethics committee approval. Conclusions: RCTs published in the Spanish language in dentistry, neurology, and geriatrics had poor compliance with the reporting of a COI, source of funding, and ethics committee approval. Future research should evaluate the accuracy and completeness of COI statements and their relationship to the funding source and direction of the results.

The Cultural Context of Plagiarism and Research Misconduct in the Asian Region.

Plagiarism is one of the most frequent forms of research misconduct in South and East Asian countries. This narrative review examines the factors contributing to research misconduct, emphasizing plagiarism, particularly in South, East and Southeast Asian countries. We conducted a PubMed and Scopus search using the terms plagiarism, Asia, South Asia, East Asia, Southeast Asia, research misconduct and retractions in January of 2022. Articles with missing abstracts, incomplete information about plagiarism, publication dates before 2010, and those unrelated to South, East, and Southeast Asian countries were excluded. The retraction watch database was searched for articles retracted between 9th January 2020 to 9th January 2022. A total of 159 articles were identified, of which 21 were included in the study using the database search criteria mentioned above. The review of articles identified a lack of training in scientific writing and research ethics, publication pressure, permissive attitudes, and inadequate regulatory measures as the primary reasons behind research misconduct in scientific publications. Plagiarism remains a common cause of unethical publications and retractions in regions of Asia (namely South, East and Southeast). Researchers lack training in scientific writing, and substantial gaps exist in understanding various forms of plagiarism, which heavily contribute to the problem. There is an urgent need to foster high research ethics standards and adhere to journal policies. Providing appropriate training in scientific writing among researchers may help improve the knowledge of different types of plagiarism and promote the use of antiplagiarism software, leading to a substantial reduction in the problem.

Why do healthcare researchers in South Asia publish in predatory journals? A scoping review.

Predatory journals offer the promise of prompt publication to those willing to pay the article submission or processing fee. However, these journals do not offer rigorous peer review. Studies have shown that a substantial share of corresponding authors in predatory journals come from South Asia, particularly India. This scoping review aims to assess what is known about the reasons why healthcare researchers working in South Asia publish in predatory journals. 66 reports (14 editorials, 20 letters, 5 research reports, 10 opinion articles, 14 reviews, 2 commentaries and 1 news report) were included in the data charting and analysis. The analysis of the reports identified three main reasons that made South Asian healthcare researchers publish in predatory journals: pressure to publish, lack of research support, and pseudo benefits. The review shows that predatory publishing in South Asia is a complex phenomenon. Combating predatory publications requires a holistic strategy that supersedes merely blacklisting these journals or listing criteria for journals that do meet academic standards.

The landscape of the characteristics, citations, scientific, technological, and altmetrics impacts of retracted papers in hematology.

Retraction is a mechanism for eliminating and correcting serious problems in the scientific literature and increasing awareness among members of the scientific community about unreliable literature. The objectives of this study were to identify the characteristics and reasons for retraction, analyze citations, and describe the scientific, altmetrics, and technological impacts of hematology retracted papers. Retracted papers were searched using the hematology category of the Web of Science database. The search yielded 101 retracted papers in WoS. Statistics methods such as frequency, mean, interquartile range (IQR), and Pearson's Correlation were used for data analysis. The findings showed the retracted papers were published in 28 different hematology journals. The majority of retracted documents were in Article type (n = 81). The mean time interval of the retracted papers from the first publication to retraction was 50.83 months. The largest number of retracted papers belonged to the United States (n = 46). The most frequently reported reason for retraction was misconduct (n = 55). The findings of this study provide a landscape into the characteristics and citations of retracted papers before and after retraction in addition to the scientific, technological, and altmetrics impacts of hematology retracted papers in the scientific community.