Objective: This observational study assessed the differences in the gender of the first and last authors in the most cited dental articles over the last four decades.
Study design and setting: Articles were obtained through an electronic search of the most cited articles in dentistry by decade (total n = 400 articles). The 100 most cited studies in each decade (1980 - 1989, 1990 - 1999, 2000 - 2009, and 2010 - 2019), with any study design, with results in dentistry were eligible. The gender of the first and last authors was determined using the Genderize database. Comparative evaluation of gender distribution in general and across the four decades was performed with the Chi-Square test, and the contribution of variables on the citation rate of articles was performed using Linear Regression.
Results: There were statistical differences between the gender distributions, with a predominance of men in the first (83.8%) and the last (86.8%) positions (p<0.001). Over the decades, there was a tendency for an increase in the proportion of women as the last author (p = 0.002; Chi-Square Trend Test). However, no statistically significant differences were observed between the genders for the first author in the last four decades (p = 0.163; Chi-Square Trend Test), with an increase of women from 6% to 22% across the last four decades.
Conclusion: The findings indicate that men lead a large percentage of the most cited articles in dentistry and that this trend does not show substantial modifications over the last years. Nonetheless, for the position of last authorship, an increase in women's representativity was observed over the last decades.
Keywords: Bias; Citation rate; Dentistry; Gender; Gender disparities.
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