The Publication Rates of Pediatric Rheumatology Abstracts Presented in European League Against Rheumatism 2009 Congress.

OBJECTIVES

This study aims to evaluate the publication rates and features of the abstracts related to pediatric rheumatology presented in European League against Rheumatism 2009 congress.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

A systematic search was performed to find full-text publications of abstracts related to pediatric rheumatology in European League against Rheumatism 2009 congress. Full-text publication rate, the elapsed time between presentation and full-text publication, type of the disease in the studies, distribution of abstracts and full-texts according to countries, journals, and presentation types were investigated.

RESULTS

Totally 220 abstracts were detected related to pediatric rheumatology. Twenty-two of them had only the title, authors' names, and institution of origin, but no abstract. Therefore, a total number of 198 abstracts were evaluated. Eighty-six (43.4%) abstracts were found to be accepted as full-text articles. The elapsed time between presentation and full text publication was median 19 months (range 0 to 64 months). While 12 orally presented abstracts (34%) became full-text articles, this rate was 45% (74 abstracts) for poster presentations. There was no significant difference in the elapsed time to reach full-text publication and impact factors between presentation types (p=0.832 and p=0.053, respectively).

CONCLUSION

The full-text publication rates were within similar ranges when compared to other reports in rheumatology field. It seems that even though European League against Rheumatism is a general rheumatology congress, it takes an important place in pediatric rheumatology field as well.