Publication performance of women compared to men in German cardiology

Abstract presentations at scientific congresses are a preparation for publication in peer reviewed journals. The present study aimed to investigate the prediction of abstract acceptance of peer reviewed publications focusing on the difference between male and female first authors.

We evaluated 8411 abstracts submitted to the German Cardiac Society by 2090 females and 6321 male scientists. Abstract grading (3 to 9 reviewers, blinded on a 5-point scale) separated those accepted and rejected followed by a bibliometric analysis of Medline publications from 2006 to 2012.

While rating of abstracts was not different between males and females (p=0.475), publication rate of females was lower compared to males (17.5% vs 24.4 ≥%, p<0.001). Female authors achieved a higher impact factor in their publications (5.1 ± 0.2 vs 4.4 ± 0.1, p=0.0003) and were more often listed on papers in highly ranked journals (impact factor ≥ 5) than males. Although, more accepted abstracts than rejected ones were published in high rank journals, a considerable number of papers were generated from rejected abstracts (22%).

Female cardiologists had a better publication success than males concerning high rank peer reviewed publications. Acceptance in blinded abstract evaluation often detects work published later, while rejected contributions still might represent high quality work suitable for publication in peer reviewed journals.