Urogynecology Research Is Underrepresented in Obstetrics and Gynecology Journals

Objectives: Patients with urogynecologic conditions commonly present to Obstetrics and Gynecology (OBGYN) practices, and therefore OBGYN physicians must be familiar with the diagnosis and treatment of pelvic floor disorders. It is important that OBGYN journals represent topics pertinent to comprehensive women’s health. This study analyzed the prevalence of urogynecology research as compared to other obstetric and benign gynecologic research in leading OBGYN journals.

Methods: A retrospective review of all papers published in leading OBGYN-focused journals from 2000 – 2023 was conducted. The publicly available PubMed package in R was used to extract papers. Stata was used to develop and carry out an algorithm searching for key words concerning urogynecology, obstetrics, and benign gynecology within the title, abstract, and key word sections of each paper. The algorithm was tested and cross-validated via manual review of papers published from OBGYN journals in 1999 to determine whether identified key words were accurate in determining the paper content. The algorithm was then modified with additional key words and re-validated based on this initial analysis.

Results: Initial validation of the algorithm using all 1999 publications from 17 OBGYN journals found a 50% accuracy for correct identification and classification of papers. After modification and re-validation, the algorithm demonstrated a 93.5% accuracy. Analysis was then performed for 81,174 articles between the years 2000 and 2023. An average of 6.6% of articles published during this time period focused on urogynecology topics. In contrast, 41.4% of articles published concerned obstetric topics, and 43.6% focused on other benign gynecologic topics (Figure 1). Within the area of urogynecology, the majority of research published was on pelvic organ prolapse and urinary incontinence, although prevalence of topics did exhibit some fluctuation with time (Figure 2).

Conclusions: Our study reveals consistent underrepresentation of urogynecology topics in OBGYN journals over the last 23 years. Given that OBGYN physicians may not subscribe to subspecialty journals, this study underscores the need for the prioritization of inclusion of urogynecologic research in OBGYN journals.