Authorship Trends in the Rheumatology Literature, 1990–2020

To the Editor:

The number of cited authors per publication has increased substantially over time in the field of medicine.^1,2 This trend of “authorship inflation” has been observed in high-impact medical journals¹ and multiple medical subspecialties,² but to our knowledge has yet to be assessed in the field of rheumatology. In this analysis, we describe the number of cited authors in rheumatology publications over a 30-year period.

A search of PubMed (NLM) MEDLINE-indexed rheumatology publications from January 1, 1990, to January 11, 2020, was designed by an experienced research librarian and conducted to identify rheumatology clinical practice guidelines, randomized controlled trials (RCTs), systematic reviews and metaanalyses (SRMAs), non-SRMA review articles, and case reports (see Supplementary Data for search terms and strategy, …