OT-124
Publication Rate of Abstracts Presented at the SPA Spring Meetings from 2010-2015
1Osmani F, 2Lee H, 2Oswald S, 2Ovsevitz K, 2Mercado P, 2Thompson N, 2Rothschild L
1University of Illinois Hospital and Health Sciences System,, Chicagoi, IL, USA; 2University of Illinois Hospital and Health Sciences System, Chicago, IL, USA
Introduction: The annual Society for Pediatric Anesthesia (SPA) provides a platform for pediatric anesthesiologists, scientists and trainees to present work relevant to our field. From 2010 to 2015, there were more than 250 abstracts accepted yearly to the Spring Meeting. The objective of this study was to measure the rate of publication in peer-reviewed journals of all abstracts presented at SPA Spring Meeting from 2010-2015.
Methods: In this descriptive, observational study we compiled a list of all abstracts accepted to the 2010 to 2015 SPA annual meeting. SPA routinely divides abstracts into three categories: oral presentations, walk-around/moderated presentations, and non-moderated presentations. Information extracted for each abstract included author name(s), abstract title, and category. A multi-tiered approach was employed utilizing PubMed’s default search tool or Advanced Search Builder function. Abstracts that were published into at least one article were documented as yielding a publication. The primary outcome was abstract to publication rate, and secondary outcome measured the number of months elapsed between conference presentation and publication date.
Results: A total of 1,814 abstracts were presented from 2010 to 2015. 375 abstracts were published in a peer-reviewed journal, yielding an average publication rate of 20.7%. Oral presentations yielded the greatest publication rate, 48.4% (n=15 of 31). Abstracts presented in moderated sessions had a 32.3% publication rate (n=235 of 727). The publication rate for the non-moderated abstracts was 11.8% (n=125 of 1056). The mean length of time to publication for all abstract types was 19.2 months from 2010-2015. Over the study period, the number of yearly submitted abstracts increased from 271 in 2011 to 407 in 2015. In 2011, 94% of abstracts were accepted and in 2015, 85% of abstracts were accepted.
Discussion: A 20.7% overall abstract to publication rate is slightly lower than a 26.8% publication rate from the Society for Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology (SOAP. (1) Within a larger context, other biomedical meetings have a publication rate of 44.5% (2). However, these meetings likely represent a greater focus on research and less on clinical practice. These meetings also report a median interval of 20 months between abstract presentation to publication (2) which is comparable to our findings. The trend of increasing numbers of abstracts submitted and lower acceptance rates suggests that either the acceptance criteria has shifted or the quality of abstracts has declined. Since publication rates may be used as one measure of the academic productivity of clinical conferences, SPA should include efforts to promote publication and identify any barriers. Abstract acceptance criteria should be explicit, as this may promote higher quality submissions that may ultimately result in publication.
References:
1. Gerlach B, Shah AM, Lee MT, Wong CA, Sullivan JT, Toledo P. Publication Rate of Abstracts Presented at the Society for Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology Annual Meetings 2010–2014. Anesth Analg 2017;124:887–9.
2. Scherer RW, Langenberg P, von Elm E. Full publication of results initially presented in abstracts. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2007:MR000005.
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