Prevalence of honorary and ghost authors in a sample of 630 research, review, and editorial articles published in six general medical journals with high impact factors in 2008, by journal and article type
| Total* | Research | Reviews | Editorials | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Journal | |||||||||||
| No of articles | % (95% CI) of articles | No of articles | % (95% CI) of articles | No of articles | % (95% CI) of articles | No of articles | % (95% CI) of articles | ||||
| Honorary author | (n=545) | (n=220) | (n=120) | (n=205) | |||||||
| Ann Intern Med | 9/58 | 15.5 (8.2 to 27.2) | 6/26 | 23.1 (10.7 to 42.4) | 2/23 | 8.7 (1.3 to 28.0) | 1/9 | 11.1 (0 to 45.7) | |||
| JAMA | 20/120 | 16.7 (11.0 to 24.4) | 13/54 | 24.1 (14.5 to 37.1) | 5/20 | 25.0 (10.8 to 47.3) | 2/46 | 4.3 (0.4 to 15.3) | |||
| Lancet | 24/122 | 19.7 (13.5 to 27.7) | 5/30 | 16.7 (6.9 to 34.0) | 4/24 | 16.7 (6.1 to 36.5) | 15/68 | 22.1 (13.7 to 33.4) | |||
| Nature Med† | 12/41 | 29.3 (17.5 to 44.6) | 11/27 | 40.7 (24.5 to 59.3) | NA | 1/14 | 7.1 (0 to 33.5) | ||||
| N Engl J Med | 18/147 | 12.2 7.8 to 18.6) | 13/58 | 24.1 (13.5 to 34.8) | 3/36 | 8.3 (2.1 to 22.6) | 2/53 | 3.8 (0.3 to 13.5) | |||
| PLoS Med | 13/57 | 22.8 (13.7 to 35.3) | 7/25 | 32.0 (17.1 to 51.7) | 4/17 | 23.5 (9.1 to 47.8) | 2/15 | 13.3 (2.5 to 39.1) | |||
| Total | 96/545 | 17.6 (14.6 to 21.0) | 55/220 | 25.0 (19.7 to 31.1) | 18/120 | 15.0 (9.6 to 22.6) | 23/205 | 11.2 (7.5 to 16.3) | |||
| Ghost author | (n=622) | (n=226) | (n=134) | (n=262) | |||||||
| Ann Intern Med | 3/61 | 4.9 (1.1 to 14.0) | 2/26 | 7.7 (1.0 to 25.3) | 1/25 | 4.0 (0 to 21.1) | 0/10 | 0 (0 to 24.9) | |||
| JAMA | 11/140 | 7.9 (4.3 to 13.7) | 8/56 | 14.3 (7.2 to 26.0) | 1/24 | 4.2 (0 to 21.9) | 2/60 | 3.3 (0.3 to 12.0) | |||
| Lancet | 11/145 | 7.6 (4.2 to 13.2) | 4/30 | 13.3 (4.7 to 30.3) | 1/28 | 3.6 (0 to 19.2) | 6/87 | 6.9 (2.9 to 14.5) | |||
| Nature Med | 1/48 | 2.1 (0 to 11.9) | 1/26 | 3.8 (0 to 20.5) | 0/1 | 0 | 0/21 | 0 (0 to 13.5) | |||
| N Engl J Med | 18/163 | 11.0 (7.0 to 16.9) | 9/60 | 15.0 (7.9 to 26.3) | 5/39 | 12.8 (5.1 to 27.2) | 4/64 | 6.3 (2.0 to 15.4) | |||
| PLoS Med | 5/65 | 7.7 (3.0 to 17.2) | 3/28 | 10.7 (2.9 to 28.0) | 0/17 | 0 (0 to 16.2) | 2/20 | 10.0 (1.6 to 31.3) | |||
| Total | 49/622 | 7.9 (6.0 to 10.3) | 27/226 | 11.9 (8.3 to 16.9) | 8/134 | 6.0 (2.9 to 11.5) | 14/262 | 5.3 (3.1 to 8.8) | |||
*Honorary author analyses are based on 545 articles with usable data; ghost author analyses are based on 622 articles with usable data.
†No review articles were eligible for honorary author analyses in Nature Medicine.