Amount, cause, and citation frequency of retracted nursing publications from 1997 to 2024 in PubMed: a bibliometric study

Purpose: Retraction provides an opportunity to correct the literature by restricting the spread of incomplete, erroneous, or biased information among the scientific community. This study aimed to delineate the features of retracted publications in the nursing field.Methods: This literature investigation identified all retracted nursing papers in PubMed. It included information on each paper’s title, authors, publication date, retraction date, journal, article category, corresponding author’s nationality, and rationale for retraction. Citation statistics were acquired from Scopus.Results: After excluding publications not relevant to the field, 457 papers remained for further analysis from an initial pool of 866. The earliest retracted article appeared in 2007 (n=3), with the peak occurring in 2023 (n=359). The three predominant countries were China (n=398), the United States (n=9), and Iran (n=7). The primary grounds for retraction were peer review issues (n=395), fraud (n=353), and ethical concerns (n=130). The retracted publications accumulated a total of 1,659 citations, averaging 3.63 per article, with 909 citations (1.99 per article) recorded after retraction.Conclusion: This study highlights that retractions of nursing-related publications are frequently linked to peer review challenges, fraud, and ethical concerns. A disproportionate number of retracted articles originated from China. Comprehensive peer review, ethical oversight, and fraud prevention are needed to preserve the integrity of nursing research.