BACKGROUND:

Changes in the character of medical authorship. Aims To compare the impact of industry-linked and non-industry linked articles.

METHOD:

We compared articles on sertraline being coordinated by a medical writing agency with articles not coordinated in this way. We calculated numbers of Medline-listed articles per author, journal impact factors, literature profiles and citation rates of both sets of articles.

RESULTS:

Non-agency-linked articles on sertraline had an average of 2.95 authors per article, a mean length of 3.4 pages, a mean Medline listing of 37 articles per author (95% CI 27-47) and a mean literature profile of 283 per article (95% CI 130-435). Agency-linked articles on sertraline had an average of 6.6 authors per article, a mean length of 10.7 pages, a mean Medline listing of 70 articles per author (95% CI 62-79) and a mean literature profile of 1839 per article (95% CI 1076-2602). The citation rate for agency articles was 20.2 (95% CI 13.4-27.0) and for non-agency articles it was 3.7 (95% CI 3.3-8.1).

CONCLUSIONS:

The literature profiles and citation rates of industry-linked and non-industry-linked articles differ. The emerging style of authorship in industry-linked articles can deliver good-quality articles, but it raises concerns for the scientific base of therapeutics.