Is there still gender bias in nursing research? An update

Data from 300 studies published in four research journals in 2010-2011 were analyzed to assess whether nurse researchers continue to oversample females. One-third of the studies had samples that were 100% female and, on average, 74% of all study participants were female. As was found for studies published 5 years earlier, the bias against male participants was consistent across studies differing in methods, specialty areas, funding, and sample characteristics. Studies with male first authors, however, were significantly less likely to have biased samples. Authors of only 23.6% of studies with mixed-sex samples provided information about sex differences in outcomes. Because of gender bias, the evidence base for nursing practice may suffer from problems with generalizability.