Does retraction after misconduct have an impact on citations? A pre-post study

Abstract

ABSTRACT Background Retracted articles continue to be cited after retraction, and this could have consequences for the scientific community and general population alike. This study was conducted to analyze the impact of retraction on citations received by retracted papers in two-time frames: during a post-retraction period equivalent to the time the article had been in print before retraction; and during the total post-retraction period. Results The results indicated an increase in post-retraction citations when compared with citations received pre-retraction. There were some exceptions however: first, citations received by articles published in first-quartile journals decreased immediately after retraction ( p <0.05), only to increase again after some time had elapsed; and second, post-retraction citations decreased significantly in the case of articles that had received many citations before their retraction ( p <0.05). Conclusions The results indicate that retraction of articles has no impact on citations in the long term, since the retracted articles continue to be cited, thus circumventing their retraction. More effective mechanisms should be established to prevent the citation of retracted articles in scientific papers. Methods Quasi-experimental, pre-post evaluation study. A total of 304 retracted original articles and literature reviews indexed in Medline fulfilled the exclusion criteria. Articles were required to have been published in Pubmed from January 2013 through December 2016 and been retracted between January 2014 and December 2016. The main outcome was the number of citations received before and after retraction. Results were broken down by journal quartile according to impact factor and the most cited papers (pre-retraction) were specifically analyzed.

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