Publication of research presented at STFM and NAPCRG conferences

Presentations of research are important in the dissemination of new knowledge, but they do not reach the same audience as research published in journals. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the proportion of presentations at recent major primary care research conferences that have become published.

Oral and poster presentations for completed and work-in-progress projects from the 2007 and 2008 North American Primary Care Research Group (NAPCRG) and Society of Teachers of Family Medicine (STFM) annual conferences were included in the analysis. The first presenter for each presentation was searched on PubMed, and titles and abstracts for presentations were compared for content to titles and abstracts of potential matches found on PubMed. We analyzed the proportion of presentations that were published in peer-reviewed journals, mean time to publication, and the proportions of the type of journal in which the article appeared (family medicine vs other) were analyzed.

There were 1,329 presentations included in the study. Overall, 34.4% of projects presented were also published. More oral presentations (42.9%) were published than were poster presentations (25.3%) (P <.001). Mean time to publication was 15.4 months. Oral presentations were published more quickly (13.7 months) than poster presentations (18.6 months) (P <.001). Published reports appeared in 192 different journals. Family medicine journals accounted for 36.5% of published.

More than one-third of all presentations at STFM and NAPCRG conferences were published in journals indexed in PubMed. Time to publication was comparable to that of other specialties. Fewer than 2 of every 5 reports were published are in a family medicine journal, suggesting vast breadth in family medicine research. Family medicine academicians need to refocus efforts on transforming presentations into published articles in peer-reviewed journals for broader dissemination of research findings.