Editorial policies for use and acknowledgment of artificial intelligence in dental journals

This study mapped the editorial policies regarding the use and acknowledgment of artificial intelligence (AI) in dental journals.

Dental journals indexed in Web of Science were analyzed. Editorial guidelines and instructions for authors and reviewers were assessed. The outcome of interest was whether a journal reported an AI policy. Exposures of interest were Journal Impact Factor (JIF), Journal Citation Indicator (JCI), total number of citations, and percentage of open access content. Associations between journal metrics and the presence of AI policies were assessed using Poisson regression models with robust standard errors. Adjusted models were developed separately for JIF and JCI, including variables with p ≤ 0.2. Significance was set at p ≤ 0.05.

Among the 158 journals analyzed, 70.9 % reported AI policies. Policies targeted authors (100 %), reviewers (88.4 %), and editors (46.4 %). The most common areas addressed were authorship, language review, and writing assistance. Journals in the upper quartiles of JIF and JCI were about twice as likely to report an AI policy compared to those in the lowest quartile. In the adjusted models, no association was found between total citations and AI policy presence, whereas open access percentage showed a negative association. While AI tools are permitted to aid in language refinement, critical tasks were consistently required to remain human-led, with rare exceptions.

AI-related editorial policies were frequent in dental journals, and higher-impact journals were statistically more likely to report such policies.

Clearer and more standardized AI policies may promote transparency and ethical AI use.