Table 1.
Characteristics of 884 retraction notices in clinical and translational research
| Characteristic | N | (%) |
|---|---|---|
| Time from publication to retraction, years, median (IQR) | 1.0 | (0.4–2.4) |
| Word count of retraction notice, median (IQR) | 109 | (70–169) |
| Entity(ies) named in the retraction notice as retracting the article 1 | ||
| Author(s) | 512 | (58%) |
| Ambiguous Editor(s)/Journal/Publisher 2 | 29 | (3%) |
| Editor(s) | 381 | (43%) |
| Journal | 45 | (5%) |
| Publisher | 139 | (16%) |
| Other 3 | 22 | (2%) |
| Not Stated | 53 | (6%) |
| Entity that initiated the investigation or discovered the retraction should occur | ||
| Author(s) | 358 | (40%) |
| Editor(s)/Journal/Publisher | 29 | (3%) |
| Letter to Editor | 13 | (1%) |
| External Investigation | 41 | (5%) |
| Readers | 52 | (6%) |
| Unnamed Entity | 95 | (11%) |
| Other | 33 | (4%) |
| Not Stated | 277 | (31%) |
| Author involvement in the retraction process | ||
| Yes, and no authors explicitly disagreed with retraction | 697 | (79%) |
| Yes, and some author(s) explicitly disagreed with retraction | 65 | (7%) |
| Author(s) unresponsive | 17 | (2%) |
| Not stated | 105 | (12%) |
| Types of Errors | ||
| Getting or Acquiring Only | 336 | (38%) |
| Preparing or Analyzing Only | 217 | (25%) |
| Getting or Acquiring and Preparing or Analyzing | 31 | (4%) |
| Something Else | 294 | (33%) |
| Unknown | 6 | (1%) |
1
Response categories were not mutually exclusive.
2
e.g., “We retract this article…”
3
e.g., institutions, medical centers, professional organizations.