Trends in female authorship in research papers on eating disorders: 20-year bibliometric study

BACKGROUND: There is a clear gender gap in scientific authorship. Although the proportions of female authors in medicine and psychiatry have increased over the past decades, women are still underrepresented. AIMS: To analyse authorship gender trends in eating disorder research. METHOD: First and last author gender in research articles on eating disorders during the period 1997–2016 were assessed in eating disorder specialty journals, high-impact psychiatry journals and high-impact clinical psychology journals. RESULTS: The total number of papers on eating disorders increased substantially over the observation period, although a decrease was observed in high-impact psychiatry journals. Female authorship increased in both specialty journals and high-impact psychiatry journals. Authors were significantly less likely to be female in high-impact psychiatry and clinical psychology journals than in speciality journals. CONCLUSIONS: Eating disorder research has been increasingly allocated to specialty journals over the past 20 years. A consistent gender gap between specialty and high-impact journals exists. DECLARATION OF INTEREST: C.M.B is a grant recipient from Shire Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and has participated as a member of their scientific advisory board. These positions are unrelated to the content of this article.