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

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]