Publication Rate and Evidence-Based Evaluation of Abstracts Presented at the American College of Veterinary Surgeon’s Annual Meeting.

The research article investigates the publication rates of abstracts presented at the American College of Veterinary Surgeon’s Annual meeting over a ten-year span, noting time taken to publish and the level of evidence in these studies. Majority of abstracts were published, mostly focused on dogs or horses and had a lower level of evidence.

Research method

• The researchers opted for a literature review method to collect data for their study.
• In the time period from 2001 to 2010, they examined all scientific abstracts found in the ACVS proceedings.
• They evaluated the level of evidence for each abstract and assigned a score ranging between 1 and 4.
• Information related to publication was found through intensive bibliographic searches in multiple online databases.

Research findings

• The publication rate for ACVS abstracts amounted to 66% in total, with 11% published even before the conference presentation.
• The main subjects of these abstracts were dogs (35%) and horses (33%).
• Majority of the abstracts, nearly 90%, were submitted to veterinary-specific journals.
• The median time from abstract presentation to journal submission was 222 days, journal submission to acceptance was 122 days, and from acceptance to publication was 208 days. The total time from presentation to final publication averaged 449 days.
• The abstracts showed a wide range in their level of evidence: 4% were of level 1 evidence, 9% level 2, 66% level 3, and 21% level 4. Higher-level evidence studies were generally submitted, accepted, and published faster compared to lower-level ones.
• Publication rates were largely consistent across all evidence levels: 61% for level 1, 71% for level 2, 68% for level 3 and 65% for level 4.

Conclusions

• The research outlines that the publication rate of scientific abstracts from the ACVS conferences is comparable with other biomedical conferences.
• However, the abstracts primarily focused on two subjects: dogs and horses. Additionally, most abstracts had a lower level of evidence which indicates less rigorous or definitive research.
• The research also observed that studies with higher levels of evidence experienced a more efficient and prompt submission, acceptance, and publication process. But, the publication rate across all different levels of evidence did not vary significantly.