WHAT ARE THE FACTORS DETERMINING AUTHORSHIP AND THE ORDER OF THE AUTHORS NAMES - A STUDY AMONG AUTHORS OF THE NETHERLANDS TIJDSCHRIFT-VOOR-GENEESKUNDE (DUTCH-JOURNAL-OF-MEDICINE)

Context.-Although criteria justifying authorship of scientific medical articles have been formulated, it is not well known how authorship is established in practice. Objectives.-To assess the criteria for autho rship used by authors of original articles in Nederlands Tijdschrift v oor Geneeskunde (NTVG, the Dutch Journal of Medicine), and to determin e whether the criteria for authorship of the International Committee o f Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) are known and applied. Design.-Surve y questionnaire, Setting.-Editorial office of the NTVG. Participants.- All 450 authors of 115 original articles published in 1995. Main Outco me Measures.-Author's contribution to study design, material, collecti on of data, statistics, and writing. Results.-Of 362 forms returned, 3 52 could be analyzed (78.2% response rate). The 5 questions most frequ ently answered affirmatively were ICMJE criteria: critical reading (86 .1% of the authors), approval of the final version (84.7%), study desi gn (74.7%), study conception (64.2%), and revision (63.4%). Authors ra ted their contribution 2 points higher than did their coauthors. Inter estingly, 64% of the respondents met the ICMJE criteria, although 60% of the respondents did not know them. Conclusion.-Authorship was mostl y in accordance with ICMJE criteria although many authors were not fam iliar with them.