Background: The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors has published clear guidelines on the authorship of scientific papers. It is the research team’s responsibility to review and ensure those guidelines are met. Authorship ethics and practices have been examined among healthcare professionals or among particular health science students such as medical students. However, there is limited evidence to assess the knowledge of authorship roles and practices among health science students.
Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study to assess the knowledge of authorship guidelines practices among health science students at King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. A survey was developed and distributed. It covered several domains, including demographic characteristics, participant’s knowledge and attitude of authorship practices, knowledge and experience with ghost and guest authorships, and knowledge of institutional authorship policies. Moreover, a score was computed to reflect the respondents’ knowledge about authorship practices.
Results: Among the 321 participants who agreed to take the survey, two-thirds agreed with and supported that multi-authored articles’ credit allocation should be based on the most significant contribution and contributions to the manuscript writing. Almost 47% agreed that team relationships would influence authorship allocation. The majority of the participants were not aware of their institutional research and publication policies. Also, around 50% of participants were not aware of guest or ghost authorships. Finally, the knowledge score about authorship credits, allocation, contribution, order, and guidelines was higher among students who were assigned as corresponding authors and those who were aware of their institutional authorship guidelines and policies.
Conclusion: In conclusion, our findings suggest that health science students may have limited knowledge about authorship guidelines and unethical behaviors involved in a scientific publication. Universities and research centers should make more efforts to raise the awareness of health science students regarding authorship guidelines while ensuring that they comply with those guidelines.



中文翻译：

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健康科学专业学生对作者身份实践的知识和意识：一项横断面研究

背景：国际医学期刊编辑委员会发布了关于科学论文作者身份的明确指南。研究团队有责任审查并确保符合这些准则。已在医疗保健专业人员或特定健康科学学生（例如医学生）中检查了作者身份伦理和实践。然而，评估健康科学专业学生的作者身份和实践知识的证据有限。
方法：我们进行了一项横断面研究，以评估沙特阿拉伯利雅得 Saud bin Abdulaziz 国王健康科学大学健康科学专业学生对作者指南实践的了解。制定并分发了一项调查。它涵盖了多个领域，包括人口特征、参与者对作者身份实践的知识和态度、对幽灵和来宾作者身份的知识和经验，以及对机构作者身份政策的了解。此外，还计算了一个分数以反映受访者对作者身份实践的了解。
结果：在同意接受调查的 321 名参与者中，三分之二的人同意并支持多作者文章的信用分配应基于对稿件写作的最重要贡献和贡献。近 47% 的人同意团队关系会影响作者分配。大多数参与者不了解他们的机构研究和出版政策。此外，大约 50% 的参与者不知道来宾或幽灵作者身份。最后，在被指定为通讯作者的学生和了解其机构署名指南和政策的学生中，关于署名学分、分配、贡献、顺序和指南的知识得分较高。
结论：总之，我们的研究结果表明，健康科学专业的学生可能对科学出版物中涉及的作者指南和不道德行为知之甚少。大学和研究中心应做出更多努力，以提高健康科学专业学生对作者指南的认识，同时确保他们遵守这些指南。