Courtesy Authorship in Academic Surgery Publications

Abstract

IMPORTANCECourtesy authorship is defined as including an individual who has not met authorship criteria as an author. Although most journals follow strict authorship criteria, the current incidence of courtesy authorship is unknown.OBJECTIVE To assess the practices related to courtesy authorship in surgical journals and academia. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTSA survey was conducted from July 15 to October 27, 2017, of the first authors and senior authors of original articles, reviews, and clinical trials published between 2014 and 2015 in 8 surgical journals categorized as having a high or low impact factor. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURESThe prevalence of courtesy authorship overall and among subgroups of authors in high impact factor journals and low impact factor journals and among first authors and senior authors, as well as author opinions regarding courtesy authorship.RESULTS A total of 203 first authors and 254 senior authors responded (of 369 respondents who provided data on sex, 271 were men and 98 were women), with most being in academic programs (first authors, 116 of 168 [69.0%]; senior authors, 173 of 202 [85.6%]). A total of 17.2% of respondents (42 of 244) reported adding courtesy authors for the surveyed publications: 20.4% by first authors (32 of 157) and 11.5% by senior authors (10 of 87), but 53.7% (131 of 244) reported adding courtesy authorship on prior publications and 33.2% (81 of 244) had been added as a courtesy author in the past. Although 45 of 85 senior authors (52.9%) thought that courtesy authorship has decreased, 93 of 144 first authors (64.6%) thought that courtesy authorship has not changed or had increased (P = .03). There was no difference in the incidence of courtesy authorship for low vs high impact factor journals. Both first authors (29 of 149 [19.5%]) and senior authors (19 of 85 [22.4%]) reported pressures to add courtesy authorship, but external pressure was greater for low impact factor journals than for high impact factor journals (77 of 166 [46.4%] vs 60 of 167 [35.9%]; P = .04). More authors in low impact factor journals than in high impact factor journals thought that courtesy authorship was less harmful to academia (55 of 114 [48.2%] vs 34 of 117 [29.1%]). Overall, senior authors reported more positive outcomes with courtesy authorship (eg, improved morale and avoided author conflicts) than did first authors.CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE Courtesy authorship use is common by both first and senior authors in low impact factor journals and high impact factor journals. There are different perceptions, practices, and pressures to include courtesy authorship for first and senior authors. Understanding these issues will lead to better education to eliminate this practice.

Have ignorance and abuse of authorship criteria decreased over the past 15 years?

“…We did not assess the prevalence of honorary authors, which varies from study to study. For example, the prevalence of honorary (courtesy) authors was 17.2% with a specific sample of authors who had published in eight surgical journals 12. For the number of articles with honorary authorship, occurrence of anywhere from 4% to 60% was observed in general medical journals 13.…”

Reflections on Authorship

“…Contributors who do not merit authorship may be acknowledged as 'Clinical or Participating Investigators', and their contributions should be specified. Nonauthor contributors are then included in the acknowledgments section of the manuscript [5].…”

“…If promotion committees accept the value of non-author involvement towards promotion, the pressure to inappropriately include authors may be diminished. More studies and adequate control for important confounders will be required to conclusively answer this and other questions on the use of courtesy authorship [5].…”

Unjustified Authorship Should Not Be Tolerated

“…Honorary or courtesy authorship has been common in Korea due to the tradition of Confucianism,23 but it is also reported common among surgeons in North America 5. Although the authorship abuse is found globally among researchers, the gift authorship to high-school children is an extreme notorious form recognized in Korea.…”