Dharampuriya PR, Singh N, Abend SL. Declining high-impact clinical publication rate: A potential contributor to health disparities among persons with developmental and intellectual disabilities.
J Family Med Prim Care 2023;
12:1871-1878. [PMID:
38024886 PMCID:
PMC10657039 DOI:
10.4103/jfmpc.jfmpc_226_23]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/02/2023] [Revised: 03/20/2023] [Accepted: 03/31/2023] [Indexed: 12/01/2023] Open
Abstract
Background
Persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) suffer from stark, well-documented health and healthcare disparities, despite data indicating that the majority see a healthcare provider at least annually. Multiple surveys have indicated that over 90% of physicians feel they have inadequate knowledge and skill in caring for those with IDD. This has been recognized as a key barrier to health equity.
Objective
To evaluate the content of high-impact clinical literature for a potential cause of clinician knowledge deficits.
Methods
We performed a bibliometric analysis of publications within major, high-impact general, and specialty clinical journals from 1946 to 2020 to determine the relative frequency of publications regarding IDD and publication rate.
Results
We observed a significant decline in articles regarding IDD over the past 20 years within high-impact general medical journals, and a significant decline over the past 15 years within high-impact, specialty society-published journals of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neurology. Furthermore, we observed that high-impact general medical journals devoted a significantly smaller proportion of publication space to articles regarding IDD than they did for conditions with similar prevalence such as HIV/AIDS, breast cancer, and drug abuse.
Conclusion
The declining rate and low frequency of clinical publications regarding IDD within the major, respected clinical literature may be contributing to physicians' ability to source evidence-based information, thereby impacting perceptions of skill and knowledge deficits, and therefore may be contributing to healthcare disparities in this population. Well-designed clinical studies that engage persons with IDD may lead to an evidence base within the clinical literature that will improve physician confidence and care quality.
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