Abstract
Background
Information is limited about the communication of corrections or errors in the medical
literature; therefore, we sought to determine the frequency and significance of published
errata in high impact factor journals.
Methods
Retrospective evaluation of errata reports for articles published in 20 English-language
general medicine and cardiovascular journals (mean impact factor, 12.23; median, 5.52)
over 18 months. Each independently adjudicated erratum was categorized by location
in the article and qualitative categories of severity. Descriptive statistics and
Spearman's rank correlation coefficients were computed to describe the association
between author and errata number. Source of error, association between impact factor
and errata occurrence, and errata rate by journal were assessed.
Results
A total of 557 articles were associated with errata reports (overall errata report
occurrence 4.2 per 100 published original and review articles; mean of 2.4 errors
per errata report). At least 1 major error that materially altered data interpretation
was present in 24.2% of articles with errata. There was a strong association between
impact factor and errata occurrence rate (rho = 0.869, P < .001). Across all errata, 51.0% were not corrected or the report did not specify
whether a correction was made.
Conclusions
The reporting of errata across journals lacks uniformity. Despite published criteria
for authorship that mandate final approval of the manuscript by all authors, errors
are frequent, including those that may materially change the interpretation of data.
Increased vigilance by authors to prevent errata and consensus by journal editors
on the format of reporting are warranted.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: March 24, 2014
Footnotes
Funding: None.
Conflict of Interest: MWR serves as associate editor for The American Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. PJH serves as an associate editor for Circulation: Heart Failure. Both receive modest remuneration for editorial contributions to these journals.
Authorship: All authors had access to the data and played a role in writing this manuscript.
Identification
Copyright
© 2014 Elsevier Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
