Journals’ Characteristics and Factors Associated with Retraction among Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics Journals: An Observational Study Based on Scimago Journal and Country Rank and Retraction Watch Databases

Introduction: Retraction is a corrective practice intended to address serious research mistakes and violations of research ethics. Most studies on retraction describe the characteristics of retracted papers, the attributes of retraction notices, the reasons for retraction, and/or the rates/patterns of retraction geographically or chronologically. Some studies have addressed postretraction issues, such as how retracted papers are cited after being retracted. To our knowledge, no study has focused specifically on the characteristics of the journals that issue retractions. Aim: To describe the characteristics of journals and patterns of retraction, as well as to determine the factors associated with retraction occurrences among pharmacology, toxicology and pharmaceutics journals. Materials and Methods: This was an observational study examining the metrics and retraction history of journals based on the Scimago Journal and Country Rank and the Retraction Watch databases. Descriptive and comparative analyses were conducted. Student’s t-test, One-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and the Chi-square test or Fisher’s exact test were used, when appropriate, to test for significant differences. Logistic regression analysis was performed, and adjusted Odds Ratios (ORs) with 95% Confidence Intervals (CIs) were computed. A p-value of <0.05 was considered as statistical significance. Results: Out of 116 journals in the subject category “Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics (Miscellaneous)”, 50 journals (43.1%) were indexed in Web of Science (WoS), 61 (52.6%) were open access and 106 (91.4%) were still classified as “active” under Scopus as of January 2025. Overall, there were retractions in 29 journals (25%), including 192 retracted articles. The maximum number of retracted articles was 110, with an average of 1.66 retracted articles per journal. Journals that were WoS-indexed and those in quartiles Q1 and Q2 were significantly more likely than their counterparts to have at least one retraction. Journals from Western Europe, North America, and the Pacific region were significantly more likely to have at least one retraction compared to other geographic regions. In this context, journals with at least one retraction had higher metrics than those without any retractions, including the H-index, total number of documents (2023), total number of documents (3 years), total number of references, total citations (3 years), and number of citable documents. Being WoS-indexed and the H-index were found to be significant independent predictors of retraction in the logistic regression model. Conclusion: The findings of the present study revealed that higher-quality journals (Q1 and Q2 journals, those with higher metrics and those indexed in WoS) experienced more occasions of retraction.