engleski

How intuitive are ICMJE criteria for authorship? Perceptions of deserved authorship among medical students and physicians

To analyze medical students' and physicians' perception of research contributions as criteria for authorship in relation to the authorship criteria defined by International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE): ("Conception and design of study" OR "Analysis and interpretation of data" OR "Collection and assembly of data") AND ("Drafting of the article" OR "Critical revision of manuscript") AND "Final approval of the article". Medical students with (n=152) or without (n=85) prior instruction on ICMJE criteria, graduate students and doctors attending a continuing medical education course (n=125), and medical teachers experienced in scientific publishing (n=112) evaluated the importance of 11 research contributions as authorship qualifications on a scale from 1 - no importance to 4 - high importance. They also reported single contributions eligible for authorship, as well as combinations of 2 or 3 qualifying contributions. Four groups were compared on the average importance they attributed to each contribution. Hierarchical cluster analysis was performed using average importance of each contribution as well as frequency of each appearance as a single or partial authorship criterion (SPSS 11.0 statistical software). "Conception and design of study", "Analysis and interpretation of data" and "Drafting of article" formed the most important cluster in all four groups. The effect of instruction to medical students was found for "Critical revision of manuscript" and "Final approval of the article". "Final approval" was a part of the least important cluster in all groups except students with instruction. "Conception and design", "Analysis and interpretation of data" and "Drafting of article" are ICMJE criteria for authorship recognized as most important by all participants, and can be considered "intuitive", i.e. independent of previous instruction. "Critical revision of manuscript", "Final approval" and "Acquisition of data" are less acknowledged contributions and their significance should be taught actively to students and authors.

authorship; ICMJE; education

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