Article retractions in health related fields of psychology: are there reasons for concern?

Abstract

Some severe cases of research misconduct accompanied by an increase in the number of retracted articles from scholarly journals have attracted considerable attention over the last years and triggered efforts to achieve more transparency within research. Across scientific disciplines Life and Health Sciences appear to have been especially affected. Against this background, results from an analysis of article retractions in psychology are presented, focusing on fields having strong overlap with Life Sciences and/or Health Research. Based on data from PsycINFO retracted articles published between 1982 and 2014 were identified. For retractions attributable to research misconduct the distribution across psychological research fields was analyzed. Number of retracted articles as well as number of retracted authors were considered. Generally, the prevalence rate of retractions is very low. However, in terms of authors blamed for research misconduct, the highest numbers were found in the fields of "Physiological Psychology and Neuroscience", "Health and Mental Health Treatment and Prevention" and "Psychological and Physical Disorders". While for the last two this can be explained by the equally high numbers of articles assigned to these fields, for "Physiological Psychology and Neuroscience" the number of retracted authors is considerable higher than would be expected. The data allow no clear-cut conclusions with regard to differences in the prevalence of research misconduct in different fields of psychology. However, in the light of a relatively high number of retracted authors, a specially careful look into efforts to ensure research quality in "Physiological Psychology and Neuroscience" seems warranted.