Journal of Medical Library and Information Science

The retraction of flawed or questionable studies is crucial for maintaining the integrity and reliability of scientific literature. However, many retracted papers continue to be cited, often without explicit acknowledgement of their retracted status. Continued citations of retracted publications can disseminate unreliable results and distort citation-based indicators, such as the Journal Impact Factor. To address these concerns, Clarivate announced in May 2025 that citations to and from retracted papers made after the official retraction date will be excluded from Journal Impact Factor calculations. This commentary addresses the issue of post-retraction citations, Clarivate’s rationale for the change, and its expected benefits and potential impacts. It argues that although the policy enhances research integrity, it may also discourage journals from pursuing and disclosing retractions due to the possible negative impact on their metrics.

Introduction: Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly integrated into medical university libraries, transforming information retrieval, knowledge organization, and user support. While AI offers efficiency and personalization, its adoption raises critical ethical concerns that align with medical ethics and library science. This narrative review examines the ethical implications of AI in medical university libraries, focusing on four guiding principles: Privacy and data protection, transparency and accountability, equity and access, and trust and user autonomy.

Methods: In this narrative review, a systematic search of the literature identified 43 relevant studies published between 2019 and 2025 using four major scholarly databases. Evidence was synthesized to highlight risks, ethical implications, and strategies proposed for responsible AI integration.

Results: Privacy concerns centered on risks of data breaches, vendor misuse, and long-term data retention, requiring compliance with GDPR/HIPAA and adoption of encryption and anonymization protocols. Transparency and accountability challenges stemmed from algorithmic opacity and bias, necessitating audits, explainable AI, and shared governance. Equity and access issues reflected institutional disparities and barriers for digitally marginalized users, emphasizing open-source tools, multilingual support, and digital literacy programs. Finally, trust and user autonomy were threatened by over-reliance on automated systems, highlighting the need for librarian oversight, ethics education, and user feedback mechanisms.

Conclusion: AI adoption in medical university libraries requires a robust ethical framework to safeguard privacy, promote transparency, ensure equitable access, and preserve user trust. Future research should focus on empirical evaluations, cross-cultural perspectives, and policy frameworks tailored to academic medical libraries.

Introduction:
The extensive use of social media has become a significant aspect of student life. While engaging with social media can lead to an increased likelihood of high-risk behaviors, self-control might play a key role in moderating this relationship. This study aims to explore how social media usage impacts high-risk behaviors, focusing on the moderating influence of self-control among students at Hamadan University of Medical Sciences.

Methods:
This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in 2024. The statistical population included 6,145 students, of whom 364 were selected using Morgan’s table and stratified sampling. Data collection tools included standard questionnaires: Virtual Social Media Addiction, Iranian Youth Risk-Taking Scale, and Tangney’s Self-Control Scale. Data were analyzed using SPSS 24 and Smart PLS 3 software with correlation and path analysis tests.

Results:
The mean scores for social media use (2.81), risky behaviors (unsafe driving = 2.55, violence = 2.34, smoking = 2.55, alcohol, drug, and psychotropic use = 2.50, suicidal= 2.61, and unsafe sexual behavior = 2.48), and self-control (2.85) were below average (P < 0.001). Social media use was positively associated with all risky behaviors, including unsafe driving, violence, smoking, alcohol, drug, and psychotropic use, suicidal tendencies, and unsafe sexual behaviors (P < 0.05). Self-control significantly reduced the effect of social media use on all risky behaviors (P < 0.05).

Conclusion:

Social media usage can heighten the chances of engaging in risky behaviors. However, bolstering self-control can lessen this impact. By strengthening self-control skills, we can effectively reduce risky behaviors among active social media students.

Introduction: Electronic book (e-book) reader programs providing rapid access to books. These programs encounter significant challenges in Iran, particularly in the medical field. This study aims to explore the obstacles publishers face in the electronic publishing industry, and evaluate the current state of Persian-language book reader programs from the publishers’ viewpoint.

Methods: This study utilized a qualitative approach, gathering data through semi-structured interviews, engaging publishers with at least 10% of their catalog dedicated to medical books, and collaborating with Persian book-reading programs. The questions focused on the challenges of electronic publishing, the economic aspects of digital publishing, and the future prospects of this industry in Iran. The present study initially selected 30 publishers through purposive sampling, followed by a snowball sampling. The data were coded, categorized, and analyzed.

Results: The study’s results revealed that publishers face several challenges, such as technical difficulties in preparing e-books, copyright issues, collaboration challenges between publishers and e-readers, and financial challenges. Furthermore, medical publishers face specific problems, such as the difficulty of organizing resources in the original language and the lack of a suitable market for specialized medical books in the digital space.

Conclusion: E-book reader applications in Iran are hindered by various challenges that reflect limitations in technical, economic, cultural, and social fields. These challenges affect publishers’ collaboration with the e-book reader app, and reduce user satisfaction. The analysis emphasizes the critical need for improved interaction between publishers and designers and suggest a pressing need to reevaluate the design and management of these applications.

Introduction: The introduction of research support services in medical and health libraries worldwide aims to provide the necessary tools and resources that assist researchers in planning, conducting, and disseminating their research effectively. This study aimed to survey the research support services and the competencies of medical librarians to provide such services in medical libraries in South-South, Nigeria.

Methods: The survey method was employed, using a sample of the population, all registered medical librarians from 11 government-owned universities with colleges of medicine or health sciences colleges in the six South-South states of Nigeria. The total enumerative sampling technique covered 47 medical librarians in the institutions. The instrument used for data collection was a questionnaire. The questionnaire was a 4-point scale instrument adapted from the Medical Library Association Competency Standards. Data were analyzed using simple percentage/frequency counts and statistical mean.

Results: The research services provided to support medical research in South-South, Nigeria, are limited to basic library services such as circulation and lending services, while medical librarians are competent in the provision of basic library services, such as effectively finding printed resources, in addition to assessing information needs and selecting information resources.

Conclusion: Medical librarians contribute to medical research; however, they need to be competent to support medical researchers in medicine more than anything else. The researchers recommend that librarians attend regular training programs to improve their proficiency in critical research areas.

Introduction: Conducting systematic reviews and meta-analyses necessitates scientific collaboration. There appears to be a correlation between the number of authors and the number of citations. This study explores the relationship between the number of authors and the citation metrics of Iranian systematic reviews and meta-analyses in the medical sciences field.

Methods: This study is correlational in nature. It examines a research population consisting of 5,231 Iranian articles focused on systematic reviews and meta-analyses within the medical sciences. These articles were published between 2011 and 2020 and are indexed in the Web of Science database. The articles were identified using relevant keywords related to systematic reviews and meta-analyses in the advanced search section, utilizing the TS tag. The evidence was sourced from Articles and Reviews. The analysis utilized SPSS software version 29, employing descriptive statistics along with the Shapiro-Wilk and Spearman tests.

Results: Most articles analyzed (62.7%) had between three and six authors. The peak average number of authors occurred in 2014, reaching 12.4 per article. A growing trend is visible in terms of average citations based on the age of the articles. The average number of authors per article does not correlate significantly with the citation indicators examined in the article.

Conclusion: The primary trend observed in the articles examined was a shift towards increased scientific collaboration. While no significant correlation was observed between the average number of authors and citation indices, the overall findings suggest that more authors tend to be linked with a higher number of citations.

Introduction: Academic libraries must continuously evaluate the quality of their services. This research investigated the quality of services in the libraries of Hamadan University of Medical Sciences from the perspective of users according to gap analysis models (LiveQual, DigiQual, and SERVQUAL).

Methods: This research is an applied, cross-sectional study. The statistical population includes 9916 active members in the portal of the central library of Hamadan University of Medical Sciences in 2023, by random sampling with a sample size of 407. The data was collected using a questionnaire and analyzed using descriptive and analytical statistics (paired t-test and non-parametric Wilcoxon test) using SPSS version 26 software.

Results: Based on Wilcoxon’s non-parametric test, there were seven areas with an average difference >12 in assessing the gap between the quality of existing services and what was expected. In the hypothesis under consideration, namely, the mean difference in quality of available services with users' expectations, a significant difference was reported in most dimensions (p<0.001). The most significant service gap was in the online service sector with an average difference of (-24.92), followed by educational programs (-21) and physical space (-15).

Conclusion: There was a considerable gap between users’ expectations and service quality at Hamadan University of Medical Sciences library centers, necessitating a serious review of the services. Current services provided fail to satisfy users. To stay pertinent and effective within the educational system, libraries must adapt to evolving user needs by embracing modern technologies and improving physical spaces, equipment, and access to information.

Introduction: Plagiarism is a form of scientific misconduct, and academics may be involved in it deliberately or unintentionally. This study aims to investigate the attitudes of faculty members and graduate students of Hamadan University of Medical Sciences towards the factors influencing the development of academic plagiarism.

Methods: This survey was conducted on faculty members and graduate students from Hamadan University of Medical Sciences in the academic year of 2023. The sample size was determined using a stratified random method (306 people). The data collection tool was a questionnaire scored on a five-point Likert scale. Data analysis was performed using descriptive statistics and the Mann-Whitney U test, as implemented in SPSS software.

Results: The study participants included 148 faculty members and 144 students. The main background factors affecting academic plagiarism are related to “low self-confidence and fear of the label of requesting help from others” (53.6%), “lack of understanding of intellectual property rights” (52.6%), “absence of ratified laws and executive mechanisms to penalize plagiarists” (49.8%), “inappropriate cultural and moral values ​​in the society regarding scientific plagiarism” (46.6%). No significant differences were reported between the views of faculty members and students regarding personal, normative, organizational, and cultural factors; however, a significant difference was observed in technology factors.

Conclusion: Faculty members and students share similar viewpoints regarding the factors creating the context for plagiarism. According to the opinions of the community under study, appropriate educational programs, regulatory guidelines, and adjustments to cultural and organizational conditions should be considered to reduce plagiarism.

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic profoundly transformed global communication practices, with Twitter emerging as a key platform for sharing crisis-related information. This study aims to investigate public emotional dynamics across four critical phases of the pandemic: Emergence, Lockdowns, Vaccine Rollout, and Variant Surges, to capture how sentiment evolved and to highlight implications for crisis communication strategies.

Methods: This study employed a quantitative content analysis method, incorporating sentiment analysis techniques, to assess COVID-19 crisis-related tweets across key phases of the outbreak. A dataset of 2 million COVID-19-related tweets, spanning January 2020 to December 2022, was analyzed using a hybrid sentiment analysis framework. VADER was applied for lexicon-based polarity scoring, while a fine-tuned BiLSTM model enhanced contextual classification. Emotion detection, guided by the NRC Emotion Lexicon, identified eight dominant emotions, including fear, trust, anger, and joy. Comparative analyses were conducted between official sources (such as verified health agencies, government institutions, and news outlets) and citizen-generated content to assess differences in sentiment and emotional tone across the phases.

Results: Two million tweets were analyzed across four key phases of the pandemic. The majority of tweets were citizen-generated (81%). Tweet volume peaked during Phase 1 (the initial outbreak) and Phase 3 (the vaccine rollout). Polarity trends indicated heightened negative sentiment during the initial outbreak and lockdowns, followed by a substantial rise in positivity during the vaccine rollout, and renewed negativity during variant surges. Fear dominated Phase 1 (36.2%), trust rose in Phase 3 (34.7%), and anger was most pronounced during Phase 4 (28.9%). Official sources were significantly more positive in tone compared to citizens across all phases (p < 0.05).

Conclusion: The findings demonstrate the importance of phase-specific, emotion-aware communication strategies. By aligning messaging with prevailing emotional climates, health agencies can reduce public trust vulnerability to misinformation and improve the effectiveness of crisis communication during future global health emergencies.