Rrapaj Artemida, Landau Anne M, Winterdahl Michael
Translational Neuropsychiatry Unit, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.
Department of Nuclear Medicine and PET-Centre, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.
Acta Neuropsychiatr. 2023 Aug;35(4):205-217. doi: 10.1017/neu.2023.16. Epub 2023 Mar 6.
Stress can have a significant impact on the daily lives of individuals and can increase vulnerability to a number of medical conditions. This study aims to estimate the ratio of male to female participants in acute social stress research in healthy individuals. We examined original research articles published over the last 20 years. Each article was screened to determine the total number of female and male participants. We extracted data from 124 articles involving a total of 9539 participants. A total of 4221 (44.2%) participants were female, 5056 (53.0%) were male and 262 (2.7%) were unreported. Articles incorporating only females were significantly underrepresented compared to articles incorporating only males. Forty articles (63.5%) which presented data from both females and males, failed to analyse and interpret the results by sex, a significant methodological limitation. In conclusion, in the literature published over the last 20 years, female participants are significantly underrepresented. In the studies where females are represented, severe methodological limitations are apparent. Researchers should be conscious of sexual dimorphism, menstrual phase and use of hormonal contraception, which may impact the interpretation of their results.
压力会对个体的日常生活产生重大影响，并会增加患多种疾病的易感性。本研究旨在估计健康个体急性社会压力研究中男性与女性参与者的比例。我们查阅了过去20年发表的原创研究文章。对每篇文章进行筛选，以确定女性和男性参与者的总数。我们从124篇文章中提取了数据，这些文章共涉及9539名参与者。共有4221名（44.2%）参与者为女性，5056名（53.0%）为男性，262名（2.7%）未报告性别。与仅纳入男性的文章相比，仅纳入女性的文章明显代表性不足。40篇（63.5%）同时呈现了女性和男性数据的文章，未能按性别分析和解释结果，这是一个重大的方法学局限。总之，在过去20年发表的文献中，女性参与者的代表性明显不足。在有女性参与的研究中，明显存在严重的方法学局限。研究人员应意识到性别差异、月经周期以及激素避孕的使用，这些可能会影响对研究结果的解释。
