Bibliometric analysis of retracted papers in the field of hypertension

Retraction is the act of withdrawing an academic article. The aim of this study was to comprehensively evaluate retracted publications on hypertension, one of the most prevalent chronic diseases worldwide. A search strategy was conducted in the Web of Science database. Information such as publication and retraction dates, the duration between them, the journal, the document type, the country of corresponding author, the reason for retraction and the requesting party, and the citation count were recorded. Trend analysis was used to illustrate the evolution of retracted papers over the years. The median duration of retracted papers was 681 days, with a median citation count of 6. The number of retracted publications has tended to increase over the years. The most frequently identified reasons for retraction were errors, fraud, and peer review issues. A total of 33.0% of the manuscripts mentioned funding. In terms of country distribution, China led with 29.1% retracted papers, followed by Japan and the USA. These findings underscore the detrimental impact of the length and increasing number of retraction periods on the reliability of the literature. Additionally, it highlights that this is a global issue prevalent among researchers’ publications in different countries, emphasizing the need for universal attention to scientific publication ethics and research standards.