Orthopaedic Trauma Association Annual Meetings Consistently Provide Academic Value for Attendees

To estimate the academic quality of Orthopaedic Trauma Association (OTA) annual meetings by analyzing acceptance rates and publication characteristics among featured abstracts.

Featured abstracts found in the finalized 2017-2021 OTA annual meeting programs were reviewed. Abstracts published with altered methodology, dissimilar results, or lacking the original first author were excluded. Variables such as annual acceptance rates, publication status, study type, level of evidence, journal impact factor (JIF), and more were analyzed.

The OTA annual meeting abstract acceptance rate averaged 23% ± 4% (range 17.5%-28.1%). Among 1001 accepted abstracts, 691 (69.0%) were published in peer-reviewed journals. Fifty-six (8.1%) abstracts were published before their respective annual meeting, 248 (35.9%) were published within 12 months after the meeting, and 544 (78.7%) were published within 36 months after the meeting. The JIF of publications averaged 3.2 ± 5.0 without significant variation between years. Featured abstracts were most commonly retrospective (n = 436; 63.1%). Podium presentations were published at a significantly higher rate than posters (77.4% vs. 64.9%, P < 0.001) and averaged higher JIFs (4.1 ± 7.9 vs. 2.7 ± 1.3, P = 0.001). A total of 122 unique journals published abstracts, with the Journal of Orthopaedic Trauma publishing the highest proportion of articles (n = 232, 33.6%).

Abstracts featured in recent OTA annual meetings boast high rates of subsequent publication in high-impact journals. These findings imply the OTA annual meeting offers strong educational value. When compared with posters, podium presentations were more often published and appeared in higher impact journals. However, the increasing prevalence of publication among both podium and poster presentations is encouraging for authors looking to substantiate the educational value of their research.