Growth of Evidence-based Publications in Pediatric Dentistry 1993-2017

Objectives: A growing interest in evidence-based practice in dentistry has increased focus on randomized controlled trials (RCT), systematic reviews and meta-analysis publications. The aim of this analysis is to examine trends in the publication of higher-level evidence publications in the pediatric dental literature between 1993 and 2017.
Methods: PubMed searches were performed using the MeSH Major Topics “Pediatric Dentistry” and “Dental Care for Children” combined with keywords “children, dentistry” and “dentistry for children” over 5-year intervals. Articles were filtered by publication type. RCTs, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses were recorded as a “high” level of evidence. The same filter was used to eliminate comments, editorials, consensus development conference, news, and letters.
Results: The percentage of systematic reviews and meta-analyses published increased between 1993 and 2017. The percent of higher-level evidence-based publications in the most recent 5-year interval (2013-2017) was 7.1%. The increase in systematic reviews was particularly strong over this 24-year period. The percent of meta-analysis publications decreased for a few years after the initial surge in 1998-2002 but shows an increased percentage recently in years 2013-2017. No systematic reviews or meta-analyses were indexed in PubMed until 1999. Randomized controlled trials were the majority of high-level evidence across all time intervals and did not show the increase that was found with systematic reviews and meta-analyses.
Conclusions: Overall, the percentage of higher-level evidence-based publications in pediatric dentistry is relatively low (7%) but has grown during the years 1993-2017. It is expected that this trend will continue given efforts by the profession and educators to implement evidence-based patient care.