Comparative analysis of retracted pre-print and peer-reviewed articles on COVID-19

IntroductionDue to the accelerated pace and quantum of scientific publication during the COVID-19 pandemic, a large number of articles on COVID-19 have been retracted. Pre-prints though not peer-reviewed offer the advantage of rapid dissemination of new findings. In this study, we aim to systematically compare the article characteristics, time to retraction, social media attention, citations, and reasons for retraction between retracted pre-print and peer-reviewed articles on COVID-19. MethodsWe utilized the Retraction Watch database to identify retracted articles on COVID-19 published from 1st January 2020 to 10th March 2022. The articles were reviewed and metadata such as article characteristics (type, category), time to retraction, reasons for retraction, and Altmetric Attention Score (AAS) and citation count were collected. ResultsWe identified 40 retracted pre-prints and 143 retracted peer-reviewed articles. The median (IQR) retraction time for pre-print and peer-reviewed articles was 29 (10-81.5) days and 139 (63-202) days (p = 0.0001). Pre-prints and peer-reviewed article had median (IQR) AAS of 26.5 (4-1155) and 8 (1-38.5), respectively (p = 0.0082). The median (IQR) citation count for pre-prints and peer-reviewed articles was 3 (0-14) and 3 (0-17), respectively (p = 0.5633). The AAS and citation counts were correlated for both pre-prints (r = 0.5200, p = 0.0006) and peer-reviewed articles(r = 0.5909, p = 0.0001). The commonest reason for retraction for pre-prints and peer-reviewed articles concerns about data and results. ConclusionThe increased adoption of pre-prints results in faster identification of erroneous articles compared to the traditional peer-review process.

Willingness to volunteer of medical students during the COVID-19 pandemic: Assessment at a tertiary care hospital in India

Background and ObjectivesThe involvement of medical students in strategies to control COVID-19 might be considered to cope with the shortage of healthcare workers. This study aims at assessing the level of knowledge about COVID-19, willingness to volunteer, potential areas of involvement and reasons for deterrence towards volunteering among medical students. MethodsA cross-sectional study was conducted among undergraduate medical students of a tertiary care teaching hospital in New Delhi. A web-based questionnaire was used to elicit demographic information, knowledge of COVID-19, willingness to volunteer and reasons for deterrence for working during COVID-19 pandemic and self-declared knowledge in six domains. ResultsA total of 292 students participated in the study with a mean age of 19.9{+/-}3.1 years. The mean (S.D.) knowledge score of COVID-19 was 6.9 (1.1) (maximum score 10). Knowledge score was significantly different among preclinical (6.5), paraclinical (7.18), and clinical groups (7.03). Almost three fourth (75.3%) participants were willing to volunteer in COVID-19 pandemic, though 67.8% had not received any training in emergency medicine or public health crisis management. Willingness to work was maximum in areas of social work and indirect patient care (62.3% each). Lack of personal protective equipment was cited as a highly deterrent factor for volunteering (62.7%) followed by fear of transmitting the infection to family (45.9%), fear of causing harm to the patient (34.2%), and absence of treatment (22.2%). Interpretation & conclusionsMajority of the students were willing to volunteer even though they had not received adequate training. Students may serve as an auxiliary force during the pandemic, especially in the non-clinical setting.