Analysis of Abstracts Presented at Turkish National Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Congresses From Year 2010 to 2013

Objective:

This study aimed to analyse, evaluate and assess publication rates of the abstracts that had been presented at the Turkish National Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (TNCAP) Congress meetings between the years of 2010 and 2013.

Method:

Abstracts that were presented in years 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013 were included in the study. Presentations were classifi ed according to type (oral or poster pre¬sentations), study type, study design, study subjects, time interval between the presentation and the fi rst publication date, the journal the article was published in, journal indices of published studies and institutions where the studies presented took place. Journal impact factorsthat had published relevant articleswere noted. The conversion rate of presentations into full-text articles in peer-reviewed journals were surveyed through PubMed, Turk Medline and Ulakbim. Total elapsed time from initial presentation to publication was determined.

Results:

Total number of presentations that had been submitted to four TNCAP congress meetings was 573. Publication rates were; 35.8%; 35.9%; 25% and 24.3% for congress meetings that took place in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013, respectively. In total, 171 papers were published, within approximately 19.3 months (range, 0-49 months), calculated by determining elapsed time from index presentation to publication. While conversion rate of oral presentations to full-text articles was 50.5%, this rate was 26.2% for poster presentations (p<0.001). Rate of publicated research articles was signifi cantly higher than that of case reports (12.5% vs 42.2%; p<0.001). The mean impact factor of the journals that included full text versions of presented abstracts was 1.323±0.954.

Discussion:

Scientifi c abstracts from Turkey had lower rates of publication comapred to those from foreign countries. Raising awareness and providing motivation for authors to conduct higher-quality researches might provide an increase in publication rates as well as creating the possibility of improved quality and success within our scientifi c meetings.