IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/qualqt/v57y2023i5d10.1007_s11135-022-01587-3.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Biased, wrong and counterfeited evidences published during the COVID-19 pandemic, a systematic review of retracted COVID-19 papers

Author

Listed:
  • Angelo Capodici

    (Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna
    Stanford University - School of Medicine)

  • Aurelia Salussolia

    (Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna)

  • Francesco Sanmarchi

    (Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna)

  • Davide Gori

    (Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna)

  • Davide Golinelli

    (Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna)

Abstract

In 2020 COVID-19 led to an unprecedented stream of papers being submitted to journals. Scientists and physicians all around the globe were in need for information about this new disease. In this climate, many articles were accepted after extremely fast peer-reviews to provide the scientific community with the latest discoveries and knowledge. Unfortunately, this also led to articles retraction due to authors’ misconduct or errors in methodology and/or conclusions. The aim of this study is to investigate the number and characteristics of retracted papers, and to explore the main causes that led to retraction. We conducted a systematic review on retracted articles, using PubMed as data source. Our inclusion criteria were the following: English-language retracted articles that reported original data, results, opinions or hypotheses on COVID-19 and Sars-CoV-2. Twenty-seven retracted articles were identified, mainly reporting observational studies and opinion pieces. Many articles published during the first year of the pandemic have been retracted, mainly due to the authors' scientific misconduct. Duplications, plagiarism, frauds and absence of consent, were the main reasons for retractions. In modern medicine, researchers are required to publish frequently, and, especially during situations like the COVID-19 pandemic, when articles were rapidly published, gaps in peer-reviews system and in the path to scientific publication arose.

Suggested Citation

  • Angelo Capodici & Aurelia Salussolia & Francesco Sanmarchi & Davide Gori & Davide Golinelli, 2023. "Biased, wrong and counterfeited evidences published during the COVID-19 pandemic, a systematic review of retracted COVID-19 papers," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 57(5), pages 4881-4913, October.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:qualqt:v:57:y:2023:i:5:d:10.1007_s11135-022-01587-3
    DOI: 10.1007/s11135-022-01587-3
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11135-022-01587-3
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11135-022-01587-3?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Adam Palayew & Ole Norgaard & Kelly Safreed-Harmon & Tue Helms Andersen & Lauge Neimann Rasmussen & Jeffrey V. Lazarus, 2020. "Pandemic publishing poses a new COVID-19 challenge," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 4(7), pages 666-669, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Guillaume Cabanac & Theodora Oikonomidi & Isabelle Boutron, 2021. "Day-to-day discovery of preprint–publication links," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(6), pages 5285-5304, June.
    2. Anna Walaszczyk & Małgorzata Koszewska & Iwona Staniec, 2022. "Food Traceability as an Element of Sustainable Consumption—Pandemic-Driven Changes in Consumer Attitudes," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(9), pages 1-18, April.
    3. Flaminio Squazzoni & Giangiacomo Bravo & Francisco Grimaldo & Daniel García-Costa & Mike Farjam & Bahar Mehmani, 2021. "Gender gap in journal submissions and peer review during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. A study on 2329 Elsevier journals," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(10), pages 1-17, October.
    4. E. Sachini & K. Sioumalas-Christodoulou & C. Chrysomallidis & G. Siganos & N. Bouras & N. Karampekios, 2021. "COVID-19 enabled co-authoring networks: a country-case analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(6), pages 5225-5244, June.
    5. Török, Ádám & Konka, Boglárka & Nagy, Andrea Magda, 2023. "A koronavírus-járvány a közgazdasági szakirodalomban. Egy új határterület tudománymetriai elemzése [The coronavirus pandemic in the economics literature. The scientometric analysis of a new discipl," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(3), pages 284-304.
    6. Lucas Rodriguez Forti & Luiz A. Solino & Judit K. Szabo, 2021. "Trade-off between urgency and reduced editorial capacity affect publication speed in ecological and medical journals during 2020," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 8(1), pages 1-9, December.
    7. Guillaume Cabanac & Ingo Frommholz & Philipp Mayr, 2020. "Scholarly literature mining with information retrieval and natural language processing: Preface," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(3), pages 2835-2840, December.
    8. Sathyanarayanan Doraiswamy & Anupama Jithesh & Ravinder Mamtani & Amit Abraham & Sohaila Cheema, 2021. "Telehealth Use in Geriatrics Care during the COVID-19 Pandemic—A Scoping Review and Evidence Synthesis," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(4), pages 1-17, February.
    9. , Aisdl, 2020. "Let’s Do Better: Public Representations of COVID-19 Science," OSF Preprints 3cpvs, Center for Open Science.
    10. Jian Gao & Yian Yin & Kyle R. Myers & Karim R. Lakhani & Dashun Wang, 2021. "Potentially long-lasting effects of the pandemic on scientists," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-6, December.
    11. Trenton Taros & Christopher Zoppo & Nathan Yee & Jack Hanna & Christine MacGinnis, 2023. "Retracted Covid-19 articles: significantly more cited than other articles within their journal of origin," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(5), pages 2935-2943, May.
    12. Rebecca A. Krukowski & Loneke T. Blackman Carr & Danielle Arigo, 2022. "Pandemic-Related Tenure Timeline Extensions in Higher Education in the United States: Prevalence and Associated Characteristics," Challenges, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-11, July.
    13. Turgut Karakose & Ramazan Yirci & Stamatios Papadakis & Tuncay Yavuz Ozdemir & Murat Demirkol & Hakan Polat, 2021. "Science Mapping of the Global Knowledge Base on Management, Leadership, and Administration Related to COVID-19 for Promoting the Sustainability of Scientific Research," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(17), pages 1-22, August.
    14. Gabriela F. Nane & Nicolas Robinson-Garcia & François Schalkwyk & Daniel Torres-Salinas, 2023. "COVID-19 and the scientific publishing system: growth, open access and scientific fields," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(1), pages 345-362, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:qualqt:v:57:y:2023:i:5:d:10.1007_s11135-022-01587-3. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.