Impact of a Formal Research Committee on Respiratory Therapists' Publications

Presenting research at national and international meetings is an important aspect of the practice of respiratory care. Our department regularly presented abstracts but few projects were written up as manuscripts. We also noted that we did not have a centralized strategy to evaluate individual projects and provide mentorship. To address these challenges, we formed a Research Committee that meets monthly. We hypothesized that the formation of this committee would be associated with an increase in published manuscripts.

We evaluated all original research abstracts authored or co-authored by Duke respiratory therapists presented at the AARC Open Forum between 2009 and 2019. Abstracts were grouped into two time periods; 1) 2009-2013 (before the formation of the research committee) and 2) 2014-2019 (after the formation of the research committee). Abstracts were evaluated based on authors, type of study, patient population, and whether the abstract resulted in a manuscript. Primary outcome was the percentage of abstracts published as manuscripts.

A total of 56 abstracts were presented by 23 different lead authors, with 16 (29%) published as manuscripts. After formation of the committee, fewer abstracts per year were presented, but these abstracts were more likely to be published as manuscripts (53% vs 18%, P = .02). For abstracts published as manuscripts, there was a significant difference in the type of study before and after committee formation (P = .042), but there were no differences in lead author credentials, senior author credentials, author gender, or patient population.

The formation of a research committee was associated with an increase in the percentage of abstracts published as manuscripts.