Knowledge and Awareness of Authorship Practices Among Health Science Students: A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Background The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors has published clear guidelines on the authorship of scientific papers. It is the research team’s responsibility to review and ensure those guidelines are met. Authorship ethics and practices have been examined among healthcare professionals or among particular health science students such as medical students. However, there is limited evidence to assess the knowledge of authorship roles and practices among health science students. Methods We conducted a cross-sectional study to assess the knowledge of authorship guidelines practices among health science students at King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. A survey was developed and distributed. It covered several domains, including demographic characteristics, participant’s knowledge and attitude of authorship practices, knowledge and experience with ghost and guest authorships, and knowledge of institutional authorship policies. Moreover, a score was computed to reflect the respondents’ knowledge about authorship practices. Results Among the 321 participants who agreed to take the survey, two-thirds agreed with and supported that multi-authored articles’ credit allocation should be based on the most significant contribution and contributions to the manuscript writing. Almost 47% agreed that team relationships would influence authorship allocation. The majority of the participants were not aware of their institutional research and publication policies. Also, around 50% of participants were not aware of guest or ghost authorships. Finally, the knowledge score about authorship credits, allocation, contribution, order, and guidelines was higher among students who were assigned as corresponding authors and those who were aware of their institutional authorship guidelines and policies. Conclusion In conclusion, our findings suggest that health science students may have limited knowledge about authorship guidelines and unethical behaviors involved in a scientific publication. Universities and research centers should make more efforts to raise the awareness of health science students regarding authorship guidelines while ensuring that they comply with those guidelines.

Insights of Healthcare Professionals into Medical Writing Support at a Tertiary Care Hospital in Saudi Arabia

“…A study conducted by Badreldin et al in Saudi Arabia reported insufficient knowledge regarding authorship guidelines and unethical practices involved in scientific publication among health science students and recommended universities and research centers to measures to increase awareness regarding authorship guidelines [ 19 ]. Moreover, in Saudi Arabia, most of the researchers and health care providers are non-native English speakers, who tend to have difficulty writing in a clear, concise, and credible manner to meet journal requirements [ 19 ].…”

Developing Public Health Students’ Strategic Skills Through Authorship Training

“…Nonetheless, based on limited published surveys of graduate students (Badreldin et al, 2021; Karani et al, 2013), it’s clear that instruction on authorship, such as teaching the standard criteria that qualify someone as an author of different types of written products (e.g., data analyses vs. policy briefs or persuasive essays) and how to engage with co-authors, is not uniformly covered. Learning disciplinary conventions and practices around authorship within different public health fields and across professional settings is essential to students as they apply these practices in their own writing and critically evaluate written documents.…”

Justifying the unethical: Are we following the wrong trend regarding authorship? Perspective from Pakistan

“…Research societies can play a constructive role in this regard by promoting research and publication ethics among young researchers. Educational institutions and seniors can educate and train their students and incorporate research ethics in their curricula to follow the authorship ethos [ 10 ].…”