Department of Community and Preventive Dentistry, University of Athens, Greece.
J Evid Based Dent Pract. 2010 Dec;10(4):207-11. doi: 10.1016/j.jebdp.2010.09.014.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the presence of publication bias (acceptance of articles indicating statistically significant results).
The journals possessing the highest impact factor (2008 data) in each dental specialty were included in the study. The content of the 6 most recent issues of each journal was hand searched and research articles were classified into 4 type categories: cross-sectional, case-control, cohort, and interventional (nonrandomized clinical trials and randomized controlled trials). In total, 396 articles were included in the analysis. Descriptive statistics and univariate and multivariate logistic regression was used to examine the association between article-reported statistical significance (dependent variable) and journal impact factor and article study type subject area (independent variables).
A statistically significant acceptance rate of positive result was found, ranging from 75% to 90%, whereas the value of impact factor was not related to publication bias among leading dental journals. Compared with other research designs, clinical intervention studies (randomized or nonrandomized) presented the highest percentage of nonsignificant findings (20%); RCTs represented 6% of the examined investigations.
Compared with the Journal of Clinical Periodontology, all other subspecialty journals, except the Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, showed significantly decreased odds of publishing an RCT, which ranged from 60% to 93% (P < .05).
本研究旨在探讨发表偏倚（接受表明具有统计学意义的结果的文章）的存在。
纳入每个牙科专业领域中具有最高影响因子（2008 年数据）的期刊。对每个期刊最近的 6 期内容进行手工检索，并将研究文章分为 4 种类型：横断面研究、病例对照研究、队列研究和干预研究（非随机临床试验和随机对照试验）。共纳入 396 篇文章进行分析。采用描述性统计和单变量及多变量逻辑回归来检验文章报告的统计学意义（因变量）与期刊影响因子和文章研究类型主题领域（自变量）之间的关联。
发现阳性结果的接受率具有统计学意义，范围为 75%至 90%，而影响因子值与主要牙科期刊中的发表偏倚无关。与其他研究设计相比，临床干预研究（随机或非随机）呈现出最高比例的无显著性发现（20%）；RCT 占检查研究的 6%。
与《临床牙周病学杂志》相比，除《口腔颌面外科学杂志》外，所有其他亚专业期刊发表 RCT 的可能性均显著降低，范围为 60%至 93%（P<.05）。
