ABSTRACT
The objective of our study was to obtain an updated image of the dynamic
of retractions and retraction notes, retraction reasons for questionable
research (QRP) and publication practices (QPP), countries producing retracted
articles, and the scientific impact of retractions, by studying 4844 PubMed
indexed retracted articles published between 2009 and 2020 and their retraction
notes. Results: Mistakes/inconsistent data account for 32% of total
retractions, followed by images (22.5%), plagiarism (13.7%) and overlap (11.5%).
There were 163 cases of duplicate submission (3.36%), 180 cases of lack of
reproducibility (3.72%), 181 cases of editorial errors (3.73%), 229 cases of
fabricated data (4.73%) and 350 cases of fraudulent peer review (7.22%).
Journals failed to properly report the retraction in 247 cases (5.1%). Thirty
countries account for 94.79% of 4844 retractions. Top five are: China (32.78%),
United States (18.95%), India (7.24%), Japan (4.37%) and Italy (3.75%). The
total citations number for all articles is 140,810 (Google Scholar), 96,000 (Dimensions).
Average exposure time (ET) is 28.89 months. The largest ET is for image retractions (49.3 months), the lowest ET is for editorial errors (11.2 months). The impact of retracted
research is higher for Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States, and other
nine countries and lower for Pakistan, Turkey, Malaysia, and other six
countries, including China. Conclusions: Mistakes and data
inconsistencies represent the main retraction reason; images and ethical issues
show a growing trend, while plagiarism and overlap continue to represent a
significant problem. There is a steady increase in QRP and QPP article
withdrawals with a peak of 878 retractions issued in 2020. Retraction of
articles seems to be a technology-dependent process. The number of citations of
retracted articles shows a high impact of papers published by authors from
certain countries. The number of retracted articles per country does not always
accurately reflect the scientific impact of QRP/QPP articles. The distribution
of retraction reasons shows structural problems in the organization and quality
control of scientific research, which have different images depending on
geographical location, economic development, and cultural model.