The Pipeline From Abstract Presentation to Publication in Pediatric Hospital Medicine

The annual Pediatric Hospital Medicine (PHM) conference serves as a venue for the dissemination of research in this rapidly growing discipline. A measure of research validity is subsequent publication in peer-reviewed journals.

To identify the publication rate of abstracts submitted to the 2014 PHM conference and determine whether presentation format was associated with subsequent journal publication or time to publication.

We identified abstracts submitted to the 2014 PHM conference. Presentation formats included rejected abstracts and poster and oral presentations. Abstracts subsequently published in journals were identified by searching the author and abstract title in PubMed, MedEdPORTAL, and Google Scholar. We used logistic regression and Cox proportional hazards models to determine if presentation format was associated with publication, time to publication, and publishing journal impact factor.

Of 226 submitted abstracts, 19.0% were rejected, 68.0% were selected for posters, and 12.8% were selected for oral presentations; 36.3% were subsequently published within 30 months after the conference. Abstracts accepted for oral presentation had more than 7-fold greater odds of publication (adjusted odds ratio 7.8; 95% confidence interval [CI], 2.6-23.5) and a 4-fold greater likelihood of publication at each month (adjusted hazard ratio 4.5; 95% CI, 2.1-9.7) compared with rejected abstracts. Median journal impact factor was significantly higher for oral presentations than other presentation formats (P < 0.01).

Abstract reviewers may be able to identify methodologically sound studies for presentation; however, the low overall publication rate may indicate that presented results are preliminary or signify a need for increased mentorship and resources for research development in PHM.