Authorship, plagiarism and conflict of interest : views and practices from low/ middle-income country health researchers
Date
2017-11
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
BMJ Publishing Group
Abstract
Objectives To document low/middle-income country
(LMIC) health researchers’ views about authorship,
redundant publication, plagiarism and conflicts of interest
and how common poor practice was in their institutions.
Design We developed a questionnaire based on scenarios
about authorship, redundant publication, plagiarism
and conflicts of interest. We asked participants whether
the described practices were acceptable and whether
these behaviours were common at their institutions. We
conducted in-depth interviews with respondents who
agreed to be interviewed.
Participants We invited 607 corresponding authors of
Cochrane reviews working in LMICs. From the 583 emails
delivered, we obtained 199 responses (34%). We carried
out in-depth interviews with 15 respondents.
Results Seventy-seven per cent reported that guest
authorship occurred at their institution, 60% reported text
recycling. For plagiarism, 12% of respondents reported
that this occurred ‘occasionally’, and 24% ‘rarely’. Forty
per cent indicated that their colleagues had not declared
conflicts of interest in the past. Respondents generally
recognised poor practice in scenarios but reported that
they occurred at their institutions. Themes identified from
in-depth interviews were (1) authorship rules are simple
in theory, but not consistently applied; (2) academic status
and power underpin behaviours; (3) institutions and culture
fuel bad practices and (4) researchers are uncertain
about what conflict of interests means and how this may
influence research.
Conclusions LMIC researchers report that guest
authorship is widely accepted and common. While
respondents report that plagiarism and undeclared
conflicts of interest are unacceptable in practice, they
appear common. Determinants of poor practice relate to
academic status and power, fuelled by institutional norms
and culture.
Description
CITATION: Rohwer, A., Young, R., Wager, e. & Garner, P. 2017. Authorship, plagiarism and conflict of interest: Views and practices from low/ middle-income country health researchers, BMJ Open, 7(11):e018467. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2017-018467.
The original publication is available at https://bmjopen.bmj.com/
The original publication is available at https://bmjopen.bmj.com/
Keywords
Research integrity, Research reporting practices, Low- and middle-income countries
Citation
Rohwer, A., Young, R., Wager, e. & Garner, P. 2017. Authorship, plagiarism and conflict of interest: Views and practices from low/ middle-income country health researchers, BMJ Open, 7(11):e018467. doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2017-018467.