Janine Magalhães
Center for Evidence Based Medicine, Bahia School of Medicine and Public Health
Co-Authors: Diego Rabelo, Bruno Góes, Alessandra Caldas, Daniel Medina, Gabriel Grisi, Camila Freire, Denise Matias, Luis Correia
The Scientific Index of Integrity among Authors of Articles Published in Major Journals: a new metric for evaluating the scientific ecosystem
We proposed the “index of integrity” and used it to assess scientific integrity among first authors of major journals. We selected first authors of original articles published in January 2019 in three major medical journals: Journal of American Medical Association, The Lancet and British Medical Journal. The index of integrity of each author was calculated by the ratio of negative (numerator) to positive articles (denominator). Considering that before proof any given hypothesis is more likely to be false, an index > 1 is desired as a marker of scientific integrity. As a result, a total of 27 authors were selected, with a median of 5 articles (IQR = 1 – 7). Sixteen authors (59%) had no negative studies and leading to an index of integrity equal to zero. Only 4 authors (15%) had an index higher than 1. The average estimation for the index of integrity was 0.40 (95% CI = 0.10 – 0.70), suggesting undesired level of scientific integrity in medical science.