Rate of full publication of presentations from the Saudi Association of Neurological Surgery meetings.

S meetings allow professionals working in the same field to share knowledge and to rapidly disseminate new research findings. The publication rate of abstracts presented at a scientific meeting, also known as the abstract to publication ratio, is a way to assess the scientific impact of a meeting. This was examined for a number of disciplines, and the average publication rate was found to be 45%.1 Over the last decade many scientific societies were established in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and most have been organizing regular annual scientific meetings. However, there is a lack of information evaluating the publication rates of abstracts presented during any of the Saudi medical society’s scientific meetings. The objectives of this study are to determine the publication rates and the factors predictive of publication of abstracts presented during the annual meetings of the Saudi Association of Neurological Surgery (SANS), a national scientific society established in 2007. The study was carried out at the Department of Surgery, King Khalid National Guard Hospital, Jeddah, KSA between January and February 2013. Abstracts of papers that were orally presented during the first 6 SANS Annual Meetings (2007-2012) were collected from the program and abstract books of each meeting. The presentations’ titles and the authors’ names were searched in “PubMed” and “Google Scholar” to identify the presentations that were published as full articles in peer-reviewed journals. We excluded presentations that were carried out by invited international guest speakers. The following data were collected for each presentation: the year, the presenter’s rank, the presenter’s center, the center’s university status, the center’s region, and the presentation’s subspecialty. The following data were collected for each published article: the publishing journal, whether the journal was neuroscience-related or general, and whether it originated from KSA or from outside KSA. In addition, using GraphPad QuickCalcs Software chi square calculator, the influence of the year of presentation, the presenter’s rank, the center’s university status, the center’s region, and the presentation’s subspecialty on the publication rates were examined statistically for significance. The total number of oral presentations during the first 6 SANS Annual Meetings were 273. The distribution of the total presentations in relation to the year, the presenter’s rank, the center’s university status, the center’s region, and the presentation’s subspecialty are summarized in Table 1. The most frequently presenting KSA centers and their presentation numbers were: King Khalid University Hospital, Riyadh: 37 (14%), King Fahad Medical City, Riyadh: 35 (13%), King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre, Riyadh: 32 (12%), King Fahad University Hospital, Khobar: 22 (8%), King Khalid National Guard Hospital, Jeddah: 14 (5%), King Abdulaziz University Hospital, Jeddah: 14 (5%), King Fahad Specialist Hospital, Dammam: 14 (5%), and Taibah University, Madinah: 11 (4%). The most frequently presenting countries outside KSA and their presentation numbers were: Egypt: 15 (5%), United Arab Emirates: 5 (2%), Lebanon: 4 (1%), and Oman: 2 (1%). The total number of articles that were published in peer-reviewed journals was 35. Hence, the abstract to publication ratio for papers presented during the first 6 SANS annual scientific meetings was 13%. The timing of publication and the article numbers were: prior to presentation 5 (14%), within the same year of presentation: 12 (34%), one year later: 12 (34%), 2 years later: 5 (14%), and 3 years later: one (3%). The median time between presentation and publication, excluding articles that were published prior to presentation, was one year. The publishing journals and the article numbers were: neuroscience-related journals: 26 (74%), general journals: 9 (26%), journals from KSA: 11 (31%), and journals from outside KSA: 24 (69%). The most common publishing journals and the article numbers were: Neurosciences (Riyadh): 8 (23%), British Journal of Neurosurgery: 3 (9%), Neurosurgery: 2 (6%), Surgical Neurology: 2 (6%), Minimally Invasive Neurosurgery: 2 (6%), Childs Nervous System: 2 (6%), and the Saudi Medical Journal: 2 (6%). Researchers in general are fully aware of the importance of publishing their presentations as full articles in peer-reviewed journals. Abstracts that are not subsequently published as articles are unlikely to reach their maximal potential readership limiting their benefits to the medical community. This can lead to wastage of resources as other researchers may duplicate the work. Compared to articles, abstracts tend to lack details in the description of materials and methods making it difficult for other researchers to understand