Iranian Journal of Medical Ethics and History of Medicine

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Self-citation is a behavior that is seen to varying degrees in researchers, research centers and medical journals. The question is whether self-citation is moral or not. This is a descriptive and analytical study (library and document research). Two main keywords (self-citation and ethics) were used for searching databases. In addition, efforts have been made for moral evaluation of self-citation by review articles from databases, ethical-codes and related guidelines.When self-citation is employed to drive readers to a better and easier understanding of an article, it is acceptable and even necessary, but when it is done mainly to increase reference to one’s articles, it is non-essential. Since unnecessary self-citation could mislead researchers and policymakers, bring false prestige for individuals, institutions and magazines, and create unhealthy competition among researchers, it is immoral. Moreover, forcing authors to use an article as reference without a scientific reason is wrong and unethical practice.Modification of evaluation methods for researchers, magazines and research centers to eliminate self-citation and also appropriately informing them about the ethical aspects of unnecessary self-citation could be effective in reducing this phenomenon. It is recommended to observe and inform the rate of unnecessary self- citation among authors, research centers and journals.

Keywords: self-citation, medical science, Ethics

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