Academic Integrity Review Report: Illness Uncertainty and Alexithymia in Elderly COPD Patients — DOI 10.7507/1671-6205.202305014

Academic fraud report · Geng Detector

Summary

This review assesses a 2023 cross-sectional study published in the Chinese Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine (DOI: 10.7507/1671-6205.202305014) by Zhang Wen et al. on illness uncertainty and alexithymia in elderly COPD patients. The verdict is 'confirmed' (实锤) based on multiple serious irregularities. First, garbled text fragments such as '51+BKS' and 'f、' appear in the introduction and discussion, indicating sloppy copy-paste or OCR-without-proofreading. Second, the multivariate model in Table 6 reports an adjusted R² of 0.801 for demographic variables predicting illness uncertainty — implausibly high for behavioral science, where 0.20–0.30 is already exceptional. Third, Section 2.1 states patients' ages were '70–79 years', yet Table 4 shows 45 patients aged 60–69 (27.3%) and 46 aged 80–91 (27.9%), meaning 55.2% fall outside the stated range, an internal contradiction that destroys reliability. Fourth, Table 3 shows Pearson's r = 0.943 between the two distinct constructs, statistically implausible and suggestive of fabricated or linearized data. Fifth, a basic addition check yields 55.31 vs. reported 55.32. Together, these issues indicate data fabrication or gross negligence; institutional verification of raw questionnaires and SPSS source files is recommended.

Verdict

🔴 Confirmed (实锤) — Multiple independent anomalies (text, statistics, internal consistency) provide strong circumstantial evidence of data fabrication and/or gross academic negligence. Formal institutional investigation is warranted.

Key findings

Garbled text / copy-paste artifacts: Non-readable strings such as 51+BKS (introduction) and f、 (discussion §3.2) indicate unproofed machine-translation or OCR output.
Implausible regression model: Table 6 reports adjusted R² = 0.801 when 12 demographic variables (age, sex, income, disease course, etc.) are used to predict total illness-uncertainty scores. In nursing/psychology survey research, demographic variables alone rarely explain more than 20–30% of variance; 80.1% is statistically implausible without data manipulation.
Internal text–table contradiction on age: Section 2.1 states patients' ages were 70–79 years, but Table 4 shows 45 patients (27.3%) aged 60–69 and 46 patients (27.9%) aged 80–91 — i.e., 55.2% of the sample falls outside the described range.
Suspiciously perfect correlation matrix: Table 3 reports a Pearson's r = 0.943 between illness uncertainty and alexithymia total scores, with most subscale correlations ≥ 0.8. Two distinct psychological constructs correlating at this level suggests linearized or synthetic data.
Arithmetic inconsistency: Sum of three alexithymia subscale means (21.87 + 18.27 + 15.17) = 55.31, but Table 2 and the abstract report 55.32.

Evidence highlights

DOI: 10.7507/1671-6205.202305014
Garbled tokens: 51+BKS; f、
Table 6 adjusted R² = 0.801 (12 demographic predictors of illness-uncertainty total)
Table 3 overall Pearson r = 0.943 between two distinct psychological scales
Table 4 age distribution: 60–69 yrs n = 45 (27.3%); 80–91 yrs n = 46 (27.9%); n in 70–79 bracket = 74 (44.8%)
Subscale sum discrepancy: 55.31 vs. reported 55.32 (Δ = 0.01)

Notes

The authors' affiliated institution is referenced in the source PDF as Sichuan College of Nursing (四川护理职业学院); an inquiry to that institution's research ethics/academic committee is recommended.
Limitations of this report: it is based solely on the published PDF text and tables; raw questionnaire data and SPSS syntax files were not independently examined. The anomalies are highly suggestive but constitute circumstantial evidence; final determination requires official institutional investigation.
No additional irregularities (e.g., image manipulation, peer-review provenance) could be assessed from the provided material.