The Pipeline From Abstract Presentation to Publication in Pediatric Hospital Medicine

About one-third of abstracts submitted to the 2014 PHM conference were subsequently published in peer-reviewed journals within 30 months of the conference. Compared with rejected abstracts, the rate of publication was significantly higher for abstracts selected for oral presentation but not for those selected for poster presentation. For abstracts ultimately published in journals, selection for oral presentation was significantly associated with both a shorter time to publication and a higher median journal impact factor compared with rejected abstracts. Time to publication and median journal impact factor were similar between rejected abstracts and those accepted for poster presentation. Our findings suggest that abstract reviewers may be able to identify which abstracts will ultimately withstand more stringent peer review in the publication process when accepting abstracts for oral presentation. However, the selection for poster presentation versus rejection may not be indicative of future publication or the impact factor of the subsequent publication journal.

Previous studies have reviewed publication rates after meetings of the European Society for Pediatric Urology (publication rate of 47%),¹¹ the Ambulatory Pediatric Association (now the Academic Pediatric Association; publication rate of 47%), the American Pediatric Society/Society for Pediatric Research (publication rate of 54%), and the PAS (publication rate of 45%).^19,20 Our lower publication rate of 36.3% may be attributed to the shorter follow-up time in our study (30 months from the PHM conference), whereas prior studies monitored for publication up to 60 months after the PAS conference.²⁰ Factors associated with subsequent publication include statistically significant results, a large sample size, and a randomized controlled trial study design.^15,16 The primary reason for nonpublication for up to 80% of abstracts is failure to submit a manuscript for publication.²³ A lack of time and fear of rejection after peer review are commonly cited explanations.^18,23,24 Individuals may view acceptance for an oral presentation as positive reinforcement and be more motivated to pursue subsequent manuscript publication than individuals whose abstracts are offered poster presentations or are rejected. Trainees frequently present abstracts at scientific meetings, representing 40.3% of primary authors submitting abstracts to PHM in 2014, but may not have sufficient time or mentorship to develop a complete manuscript.¹⁸ To our knowledge, there have been no publications that assess the impact of trainee status on subsequent publication after conference submission.

Our study demonstrated that selection for oral presentation was associated with subsequent publication, shorter time to publication, and publication in journals with higher impact factors. A 2005 Cochrane review also demonstrated that selection for oral presentation was associated with subsequent journal publication.¹⁶ Abstracts accepted for oral publication may represent work further along in the research process, with more developed methodology and results. The shorter time to publication for abstracts accepted for oral presentation could also reflect feedback provided by conference attendees after the presentation, whereas poster sessions frequently lack a formalized process for critique.

Carroll et al. found no difference in time to publication between abstracts accepted for presentation at the PAS and rejected abstracts.²⁰ Previous studies demonstrate that most abstracts presented at scientific meetings that are subsequently accepted for publication are published within 2 to 3 years of the meeting,¹² with publication rates as high as 98% within 3 years of presentation.¹⁷ In contrast to Carroll et al., we found that abstracts accepted for oral presentation had a 4-fold greater likelihood of publication at each month than rejected abstracts. However, abstracts accepted for poster presentation did not have a significant difference in the proportional hazard ratio models for publication compared with rejected abstracts. Because space considerations limit the number of abstracts that can be accepted for presentation at a conference, some abstracts that are suitable for future publication may have been rejected due to a lack of space. Because researchers often use scientific meetings as a forum to receive peer feedback,¹² authors who present at conferences may take more time to write a manuscript in order to incorporate this feedback.

The most common journal in which submitted abstracts were subsequently published was Hospital Pediatrics, representing twice as many published manuscripts as the second most frequent journal, Pediatrics. Hospital Pediatrics, which was first published in 2011, did not have an impact factor assigned during the study period. Yet, as a peer-reviewed journal dedicated to the field of PHM, it is well aligned with the research presented at the PHM meeting. It is unclear if Hospital Pediatrics is a journal to which pediatric hospitalists tend to submit manuscripts initially or if manuscripts are frequently submitted elsewhere prior to their publication in Hospital Pediatrics. Submission to other journals first likely extends the time to publication, especially for abstracts accepted for poster presentation, which may describe studies with less developed methods or results.

This study has several limitations. Previous studies have demonstrated mean time to publication of 12 to 32 months following abstract presentation with a median time of 19.6 months.¹⁶ Because we only have a 30-month follow-up, there may be abstracts still in the review process that are yet to be published, especially because the length of the review process varies by journal. We based our literature search on the first author of each PHM conference abstract submission, assuming that this presenting author would be one of the publishing authors even if not remaining first author; if this was not the case, we may have missed some abstracts that were subsequently published in full. Likewise, if a presenting author’s last name changed prior to the publication of a manuscript, a publication may have been missed. This limitation would cause us to underestimate the overall publication rate. It is not clear whether this would differentially affect the method of presentation. However, in this study, there was concordance between the presenting author and the publication’s first author in 87.8% of the abstracts subsequently published in full. Presenting authors who did not remain the first author on the published manuscript maintained authorship as either the senior author or second or third author, which may represent changes in the degree of involvement or a division of responsibilities for individuals working on a project together. While our search methods were comprehensive, there is a possibility that abstracts may have been published in a venue that was not searched. Additionally, we only reviewed abstracts submitted to PHM for 1 year. As the field matures and the number of fellowship programs increases, the quality of submitted abstracts may increase, leading to higher publication rates or shorter times to publication. It is also possible that the publication rate may not be reflective of PHM as a field because hospitalists may submit their work to conferences other than the PHM. Lastly, it may be more challenging to interpret any differences in impact factor because some journals, including Hospital Pediatrics (which represented a plurality of poster presentation abstracts that were subsequently published and is a relatively new journal), did not have an impact factor assigned during the study period. Assigning a 0 to journals without an impact factor may artificially lower the average impact factor reported. Furthermore, an impact factor, which is based on the frequency with which an individual journal’s articles are cited in scientific or medical publications, may not necessarily reflect a journal’s quality.