Assessing research misconduct in Iran: a perspective from Iranian medical faculty members

We used the Persian version of the research misconduct questionnaire (PRMQ) on the Google Forms platform. We sent the survey link to a systematic random sample of medical faculty members in Iran (N = 4986). Descriptive analyses were performed on the individual items of the PRMQ, with frequencies and...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:BMC medical ethics 2021-06, Vol.22 (1), p.1-74, Article 74
Main Authors: Shamsoddin, Erfan, Torkashvand-Khah, Zahra, Sofi-Mahmudi, Ahmad, Janani, Leila, Kabiri, Payam, Shamsi-Gooshki, Ehsan, Mesgarpour, Bita
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Beliefs, opinions and attitudes
Bioethics
Biomedical research
Education
Ethical aspects
Faculty
Hirsch index
Hypotheses
Iran
Medical colleges
Medical research
Medical teaching personnel
Medicine, Experimental
Plagiarism
Professional misconduct
Public opinion
Questionnaires
Research fraud
Scientific misconduct
Scientometrics
Surveys and questionnaires
Tenure
Validity
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Summary:We used the Persian version of the research misconduct questionnaire (PRMQ) on the Google Forms platform. We sent the survey link to a systematic random sample of medical faculty members in Iran (N = 4986). Descriptive analyses were performed on the individual items of the PRMQ, with frequencies and percentages for categorical and Likert-type response items, and means and standard deviation (S.D.) for continuous variables. Chi-square analysis was conducted to test hypotheses examining differences in the frequency of responses related to factors influencing misconduct. We also defined four tenure categories (TC) based on the working years of the participants as tenured faculty members. All the analyses were performed using R 3.6.0. The response rate was 13.8% (692 responses). Nearly 70% of the respondents agreed that their publication output would be of higher quality if there were no publication pressure. Approximately three-quarters (N =499, 72.1%) of the respondents had been aware of some instances of research misconduct during the previous year according to their understanding of misconduct. Among the participants, 18.5% perceived the effectiveness of their associated organisation's rules for reducing research misconduct to be high or very high. Pressure for tenure was identified as the item most frequently perceived with a strong behavioural influence on engaging in research misconduct (80.2%). This study confirms that research misconduct needs to be actively addressed among the medical faculty members. Making policies with a focus on boosting awareness regarding the occasions of scientific misconduct and its management seems to be indispensable in the future in Iran.
ISSN:1472-6939
1472-6939
DOI:10.1186/s12910-021-00642-2