Fate of abstracts presented at five International Conferences on Pharmacoepidemiology (ICPE): 1995-1999.

BACKGROUND

Meetings are an important way of exchanging scientific information, but full diffusion of new information can only be achieved when results are published in scientific journals.

PURPOSE

(1) To determine the publication frequency of accepted abstracts for the yearly international conferences on pharmacoepidemiology (ICPE) and to examine predicting variables; (2) if published, to determine impact differences between 'oral' and 'poster' abstracts and to determine type and nature of publishing journals.

METHODS

Abstracts accepted for ICPE 1995-1999, published in the official conference supplement of Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety, were included. Publication status for the information contained in each abstract was evaluated through MEDLINE and IPA searches. Impact factors of publishing journals were retrieved and journals were included in one of five groups.

RESULTS

Overall, one out of three abstracts resulted in a publication in the peer-reviewed journals studied. Abstracts from North America were more often presented orally than abstracts from Europe, but had lower publication chances. 'Oral' abstracts were more likely to be published than 'poster' abstracts; abstracts with a strong methodological content had a lower publication frequency. Most of the published abstracts were found in pharmacology and pharmacy journals (33%) and journals on specific clinical topics (30%).

CONCLUSIONS

Only one out of three papers presented at ICPE ends up in established peer-reviewed journals. Although the publication characteristics for ICPE are not very different from other conferences, there are certain questions that warrant further investigation.