NSU-MD Faculty Articles

Study characteristics of abstracts presented at the annual meetings of the southeastern section of the American Urological Association (1996-2005).

Publication Title

The Journal of urology

Publisher

Elsevier Inc.

ISSN

0022-5347

Publication Date

2-1-2008

Keywords

Abstracting and Indexing as Topic, Bibliometrics, Congresses as Topic, Humans, Peer Review, Research, Periodicals as Topic, Research Design, Societies, Medical, United States, Urology

Abstract

PURPOSE: We determined study characteristics, authorship and institutional origin of studies presented in abstract form at the Southeastern Section of the American Urological Association annual meetings and identified predictors of full text publication.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: All abstracts of poster and podium presentations from the Southeastern Section of the American Urological Association annual meetings from 1996 to 2005 were reviewed. A standardized evaluation form was developed and tested in 2 subsets of 50 abstracts, and then applied by 2 individual reviewers with specific coding instructions. Predictor variables analyzed included study origin, design, topic, domain, presentation form, number of patients, reporting of statistical analysis and gender. Univariate and multivariate analysis was applied using SPSS version 14.0.

RESULTS: A total of 1,195 abstracts were found eligible for review. The mean number of abstracts presented per year was 120 +/- 16 (range 107 to 146). In clinical studies (1,068) approximately three-quarters of the abstracts reported case series (801, 75.0%). Cohort studies accounted for 11.2% of the abstracts and 4.0% were randomized controlled trials or systematic reviews/meta-analyses. Median followup was 64 months (range 17 to 126) and the overall publication rate was 33.5%. First and senior female authorship were identified in 6.2% (74) and 5.4% (64) of abstracts presented, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS: A majority of studies presented at the Southeastern Section of the American Urological Association annual meetings continue to represent small case series that may not be well suited to guide clinical decision making. Only a third of studies are subsequently published in the peer reviewed literature. The percentage of abstracts with female authorship remains low suggesting that increased efforts to involve women in urological research are indicated.

DOI

10.1016/j.juro.2007.09.070

Volume

179

Issue

2

First Page

667

Last Page

671

Disciplines

Medicine and Health Sciences

Peer Reviewed

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