Adherence to research data sharing practice in dentistry over the last decade: a cross-sectional study

Area of Science:

• Dental research
• Bibliometrics
• Scientific publishing

Background:

• Adherence to data sharing practices in scientific research is crucial for transparency and reproducibility.
• The multidisciplinary dental literature's current data sharing landscape is not well-defined.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the frequency of dental research data sharing over a ten-year period (2013-2023).
• To identify factors associated with dental research data sharing.

Main Methods:

• A cross-sectional study analyzing 900 dental articles from five high-impact multidisciplinary journals.
• Articles were selected from three time periods: 2013, 2018, and 2023.
• Data sharing prevalence was assessed, with statistical analysis using Chi-square tests and logistic regression.

Main Results:

• Only 2.2% of the analyzed studies reported data sharing practices.
• Studies published as open access demonstrated a significantly higher prevalence of data sharing (OR: 2.97; 95% CI: 1.10-8.02) compared to subscription-based publications.
• Publication type was significantly associated with data sharing, while year, continent, and citations were not.

Conclusions:

• Adherence to data sharing practices in multidisciplinary dental literature is notably low.
• Open access publishing models appear to encourage greater data sharing among dental researchers.
• Further initiatives may be needed to promote widespread data sharing in dentistry.