Abstract
Purpose :
To evaluate the publication rate of research abstracts presented at the ARVO Annual Meeting and to assess influencing factors.
Methods :
We randomly selected and reviewed 20% of all accepted abstracts, presented as either oral or poster presentations, at the 2010 ARVO Annual Meeting. A Pubmed-Medline search was performed to identify a matching journal article. Two- and 5-year publication, impact factor of publication (Journal Citation Reports® published by Thomson Reuters), sub-specialty (Scientific Sections), area of origin, and presentation type were tabulated.
Results :
We selected 1238 abstracts, 1097 (88.5%) presented as poster and 142 (11.5%) presented as oral papers. The most represented Scientific Sections were Retina-RE (n=212; 17.1%), Cornea-CO (n=176; 14.2%), and Glaucoma-GL (n=149; 12%). The less represented was Anatomy and Pathology/Oncology-AP (n=43; 3.5%). The most represented areas of origin were North America (n=702; 56.7%), Europe (n=284; 22.9%), and Asia (n=158; 12.8%).
The overall 5-year publication rate was 51.7% (n=641), significantly higher for papers than for posters (66.2% vs 50%; P<0.001, Fisher's exact test).
The overall 2-year publication rate was 36% (n=446), significantly higher for papers than for posters (47.2% vs 34.5%; P<0.01).
Chi-Square test showed significant different publication rates among the Scientific Sections (P<0.001): >60% for Physiology/Pharmacology-PH, Retinal Cell Biology-RC and Visual Neuroscience-VN; <50% for Eye Movements/Strabismus/Amblyopia/Neuro-ophthalmology-EY, RE, and Visual Psychophysics/Physiological Optics-VI; 50-60% for all the other Sections.
No significant different publication rates were found among the areas of origin (51%-58%), except South America (37%) and Africa (25%).
The mean impact factor of journals where the abstracts were published was 3.4±2.7 (range 0-33.6), significantly higher for oral papers than for posters (4.6±4.1 vs 3.2±2.3; P<0.001, T-test), significantly higher for VN (5.9±7.8) compared to the other Sections (P<0.001, ANOVA and Tukey post hoc test), and significantly lower for South America compared to North America and Europe (P<0.05).
Conclusions :
The ARVO Annual Meeting is a largely interdisciplinary platform for exchanges of ideas and information for a large number of researchers all over the world. The differences in publication rate between posters and papers and among Sections should be kept in mind when interpreting the presented results.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2016 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Seattle, Wash., May 1-5, 2016.