Citations are an important, but often overlooked, part of every scientific paper. They allow the reader to trace the flow of evidence, serving as a gateway to relevant literature. Most scientists are aware of citations errors, but few appreciate the prevalence or consequences of these problems. The purpose of this study was to examine how often frequently cited papers in biomedical scientific literature are cited inaccurately. The study included an active participation of first authors of frequently cited papers; to first-hand verify the citations accuracy. The approach was to determine most cited original articles and their parent authors, that could be able to access, and identify, collect and review all citations of their original work. Findings from feasibility study, where we collected and reviewed 1,540 articles containing 2,526 citations of 14 most cited articles in which the 1st authors were affiliated with the Faculty of Medicine University of Belgrade, were further evaluated for external confirmation in an independent verification set of articles. Verification set included 4,912 citations identified in 2,995 articles that cited 13 most cited articles published by authors affiliated with the Mayo Clinic Division of Nephrology and Hypertension (Rochester, Minnesota, USA), whose research focus is hypertension and peripheral vascular disease. Most cited articles and their citations were determined according to SCOPUS database search. A citation was defined as being accurate if the cited article supported or was in accordance with the statement by citing authors. A multilevel regression model for binary data was used to determine predictors of inaccurate citations. At least one inaccurate citation was found in 11% and 15% of articles in the feasibility study and verification set, respectively, suggesting that inaccurate citations are common in biomedical literature. The main findings were similar in both sets. The most common problem was the citation of nonexistent findings (38.4%), followed by an incorrect interpretation of findings (15.4%). One fifth of inaccurate citations were due to chains of inaccurate citations, in which inaccurate citations appeared to have been copied from previous papers. Reviews, longer time elapsed from publication to citation, and multiple citations were associated with higher chance of citation being inaccurate. Based on these findings, several actions that authors, mentors and journals can take to reduce citation inaccuracies and maintain the integrity of the scientific literature have been proposed.

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生物医学文献中经常被引用的论文的引用有多准确？

引用是每篇科学论文的重要但经常被忽略的一部分。它们使读者能够追踪证据的流向，成为相关文献的门户。大多数科学家都知道引用错误，但是很少有人意识到这些问题的普遍性或后果。这项研究的目的是检查生物医学科学文献中被频繁引用的论文被错误引用的频率。该研究包括经常被引用的论文的第一作者的积极参与；直接验证引用的准确性。该方法是确定引用最多的原始文章及其父作者，以便能够访问，识别，收集和审查其原始著作的所有引文。可行性研究的结果，我们收集并审查了1,540篇包含2篇文章的文章 贝尔格莱德大学医学院第一作者的14条被引用最多的文章中有526条被引用，并在一套独立的验证文章中进行了外部确认。验证集包括2,995篇文章中确定的4,912篇引用文献，其中引用了由梅奥诊所的肾脏病和高血压科（美国明尼苏达州罗彻斯特市）的作者发表的13篇引用最多的文章，其研究重点是高血压和周围血管疾病。大多数引用的文章及其引文是根据SCOPUS数据库搜索确定的。如果引用的文章支持作者的陈述或与作者陈述相符，则引用被定义为准确。使用二进制数据的多级回归模型来确定不正确引用的预测因子。在可行性研究和验证集中分别有11％和15％的文章至少发现了不正确的引文，这表明生物医学文献中不正确的引文很普遍。两组的主要发现相似。最常见的问题是引用不存在的发现（占38.4％），其次是对发现的不正确解释（占15.4％）。不准确的引用有五分之一是由于不正确的引用链所致，其中不准确的引用似乎是从以前的论文中复制而来的。评论，从发表到被引用的时间更长，并且多次被引用与被引用不正确的可能性更高。根据这些发现，作者创作了一些动作，