Publication of abstracts presented at the Irish Paediatric Association conference

• Published in: Irish journal of medical science 2021-02, Vol.190 (1), p.209-216
• Main Authors: Gaughan, Kevin Peter, O’Grady, Michael Joseph
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Family Medicine; General Practice; Internal Medicine; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Original Article
• ISSN: 0021-1265; 1863-4362
• DOI: 10.1007/s11845-020-02277-5

Background The proportion of abstracts presented at medical conferences that are subsequently published is a potentially useful surrogate for the quality of the material presented. The mean publication percentage for paediatric conference abstracts reported in the literature is 39%. The publication of abstracts presented at the Irish Paediatric Association’s (IPA) annual conference have not previously been explored. Aim To identify the subsequent publication proportion for abstracts presented at the IPA annual conference and to identify factors associated with a higher likelihood of publication. Methods As 95% of publications occur within 5 years of conference presentation, abstracts from the 2008 to 2012 IPA conferences were selected for analysis. A PubMed/Medline search was conducted using the author’s names and, if required, abstract keywords. For comparability with previous studies, articles were deemed published if they were full journal articles, contained at least one similar author and reported similar outcomes. Results Over the 5-year study period, 584 IPA abstracts were presented. The percentage of abstracts published was 19.7%. One hundred and fifteen articles were published in 45 different journals; 31 (27%) of these were published in the Irish Medical Journal. The percentage of abstracts published was significantly higher for oral presentations (23% vs. 15%; p  = 0.012), university-associated abstracts (31% vs. 16%; p