Introduction:

The scientific advancement in dentistry has been driven by technological advancements in recent years and incentives for academic production. However, it is concerning that, as observed in other knowledge domains, productivity may be concentrated in the hands of few authors.

Objective:

To assess the historical productivity of Colombian dentistry researchers in Scopus using Lotka's law.

Methods:

Analytical study of a documentary, retrospective, and cross-sectional type was conducted. Data on dental authors and scientific publications in Scopus from 1963 to 2022 were collected. The number of authors per publication observed was compared with the expected values according to Lotka's classic law. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was utilized to determine significant differences between the two datasets, with a significance level of 0.01.

Results:

A historical productivity of 268 articles distributed among 790 authors was obtained. Of the articles published, 40% were published in the last 5 years (2018 - 2022). The historical peak of production occurred in 2021, with 43 research outputs. Of all publications, 60% were concentrated among 103 (13%) authors. A total of 50 (6.3%) authors participated in 5 or more publications.

Discussion:

No statistically significant differences were found between the observed and expected number of publications per author (p = 0.5189). The value of c was 1.87.

Conclusion:

The historical productivity of Colombian authors in dentistry within Scopus follows Lotka's law, aligning with findings from previous studies conducted in other countries.