Trends in scientific publication among dental students at a private Peruvian university: a seven-year characterization

Background: For health science students, publishing in scientific journals is a significant milestone that can positively impact their professional careers, providing recognition and credibility within the academic and professional community. However, despite the apparent increase in scientific production among undergraduate dental students in Latin America and the Caribbean, it remains low compared to other regions. The study aimed to determine the frequency of publication in scientific journals of the documents to obtain the professional title of dental surgeon by undergraduate dental students at a private Peruvian university over seven years. Methods: This cross-sectional study considered all records of theses required for the professional title of dental surgeon from the Faculty of Dentistry at a private Peruvian university, as published in its institutional repository between 2017 and 2023. The main variable of the study was publication in scientific journals. In contrast, the year of formal submission of the document to obtain the professional title of dental surgeon, the type of document, the modality of obtaining the professional title, the area of dental specialty according to the American Dental Association, the year of publication, international indexing, impact factor (IF), and journal’s quartile ranking were considered as covariates. Descriptive analysis was conducted to obtain absolute and relative frequencies. Results: Between 2017 and 2023, 246 documents for the professional title of dental surgeon were published in the institutional repository of a Peruvian university, of which 23 were subsequently published in scientific journals. Of these, 20 (86.96%) were published in internationally indexed scientific journals, 1 (5.00%) was published in journals with an IF ≥ 2, and 2 (10.00%) were published in Q2 category journals. Conclusions: The seven-year analysis reveals significant challenges in converting undergraduate dental research at a Peruvian university into published scientific literature, with low rates of research documents achieving publication in scientific journals.