Reliability of disclosure forms of authors' contributions.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The contribution disclosure forms used by medical journals to assess and confirm authorship are surveys of self-reported behaviour that follow the cognitive rules of psychometric instruments. We sought to analyze how autobiographical memory, defined as memory for events and issues related to oneself, affected the reliability of contribution forms for the judging of authorship of research articles.

Methods

We conducted a prospective study, which ultimately included 919 authors of 201 articles submitted to a general medical journal from July 2001 through December 2002. A authorship disclosure form with a checklist of 11 possible contribution choices for all authors was sent first to each article's corresponding author, who was asked to fill it out for all authors. A

SUBMITTER: Ilakovac V 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1764586 | biostudies-literature | 2007 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature