Bibliographic Characteristics and the Time Course of Published Studies About Gender Dysphoria: 1970–2011

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Gender dysphoria (GD) is a disorder used to describe a person whose clinical diagnosis is a strong and persistent desire to live as a person of the opposite gender. In this study, we report on a bibliographic review of published studies about the disorder.

Method: In this bibliographic study, the existing scholarly and public databases were created between 1970 and 2011. Information including study subject, type, and area; year of publication; and authors was extracted from the articles.

Results: From a total of 3,950 initially derived articles, 1,653 (41.2%) were related to the topic of gender dysphoria of which 45.8% were published during the last 10 years. Most papers discussed the diagnosis and etiology, while a mere 1% discussed the prevalence of gender dysphoria. Most of the articles were narrative reviews, case studies, and cross-sectional studies (29%, 27.6%, and 21.7%, respectively).

Conclusion: There has been a substantial increase of interest in the scientific community in GD. Increasing epidemiological reviews and developing information networks may increase further research and public dissemination of relevant concepts and methods.

Keywords:

• Bibliographic review
• gender dysphoria
• scientometrics

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to express their gratitude to Shima Khalfbeigi, MD, and Nasim Mohammadi-Seilabipour, MD, from Mental Health Research Center, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran, and also to Narges Alirezaee, MS; Sepideh Soltan Mohammadi, MS; and Ala Ghapanchi, MS, from Tehran Institute of Psychiatry, School of Behavioral Sciences and Mental Health, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran, for conducting the online searches related to this study.

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher's website at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15532739.2015.1080648.

Funding

This study was funded by a grant from the Mental Health Research Center, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.