Authorship criteria and disclosure of contributions: Comparison of 3 general medical journals with different author contribution forms

Abstract

Context: A number of general medical journals and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) request authors to disclose their contributions. Little is known about the effect of journal policies on authors' disclosure of their contributions. Objective: To determine the number of named authors Who do not meet ICMJE criteria for authorship, according to their published contributions, in 3 medical journals with different contribution disclosure practices. Design: Observational study of authors' contributions in research articles published in 2002 in Annals of Internal Medicine (n = 72), BMJ (n = 107), and JAMA (n = 81). BMJ asks authors to describe research contributions in their own words; Annals asks authors to choose from a list of coded contributions; and JAMA uses a structured checklist with instructions on contributions that qualify for ICMJE authorship criteria. Honorary authorship was defined as the lack of contribution from the first ICMJE criterion (study conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data) and/or second (drafting the article or critical revision for important intellectual content) ICMJE criterion. Results: According to authors' published contributions, the number of honorary authors was highest in Annals (121/562 authors, 21.5%), followed by BMJ (46/482, 9.5%), and JAMA (3/641, 0.5%) (Χ22=146.67, P