Background: The increase in authors per scientific article in many different medical and scientific disciplines has raised concerns over ethical authorship. Trends in authorship in dermatopathology are unknown.
Methods: Cross-sectional study of a random sample of 200 articles from the Journal of Cutaneous Pathology (1981-2020).
Results: The number of authors per article increased by an estimated 96% between 1981 and 2020 (2.7-5.3), while the relative citation ratio decreased by an estimated 56% during the same period (1.19-0.52). Higher author counts were not associated with higher relative citation ratios (p = 0.2349) or analytic study designs (p = 0.2987). Higher relative citation ratios were associated with analytic study designs (p = 0.0374).
Conclusions: There has been significant growth in authorship credit at the journal without a corresponding increase in research impact or study rigor. Remedial measures to stem authorship inflation and promote more impactful studies may be necessary.
Keywords: SKIN; authorship; medical writing; research design.
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