Duplicate publication in the nursing literature.

The purpose of this study was to identify examples of duplicate publication in the nursing literature and determine what types of duplicate articles are published. From the sample of 642 articles published by 77 authors during a 5-year period, 181 articles were classified as duplicate. Forty-one authors published at least one form of duplicate article. Fifty-nine duplicate articles did not reference the primary article. Duplicate publication itself is not unethical, but duplicate publication without referencing duplicate work is unethical and may violate copyright law.