Prevalence of covert duplicate publications in Budd-Chiari syndrome articles in China: a systematic analysis

Background: Covert duplicate publication is unquestionably unethical and problematic. Approximately 3000 articles describing Budd-Chiari syndrome in China have been published. However, no study has yet explored the prevalence of covert duplicate publications among these articles.

Methods: We retrieved original articles regarding Budd-Chiari syndrome in China via the PubMed, Chinese Scientific and Technological Journal (VIP), and China National Knowledge Infrastructure databases. The prevalence of covert duplicate publications was evaluated across publication dates, institutional grades, and academic levels of the journals.

Results: Overall, 1914 articles were included in our analysis. These articles were produced by 632 institutions and published in 463 journals. Overall, 10% (184/1914) of the articles, 10% (62/632) of the institutions, and 26% (119/463) of the journals were involved in covert duplicate publications. A decreasing trend in the prevalence of covert duplicate publications over time was observed. The prevalence of covert duplicate publications was significantly higher in tertiary hospitals than in primary hospitals or unclassified institutions (10.0% vs 3.8%, P = .038), but the prevalence was similar between tertiary and secondary hospitals (10.0% vs 9.3%, P = .72). The prevalence of covert duplicate publications was significantly higher in Science Citation Index journals than in Chinese Academic Core journals (23.9% vs 10.3%, P = .001) and other journals (23.9% vs 8.3%, P < .001).

Conclusions: Covert duplicate publications are relatively common among articles on Budd-Chiari syndrome in China. The high prevalence of covert duplicate publication in Science Citation Index journals should remind English-language journal editors to verify whether the articles submitted by Chinese researchers have been published in Chinese-language journals.