Abstract
Objectives To systematically review reports that queried abstract authors about reasons for not subsequently publishing abstract results as full-length articles. Study Design and Setting Systematic review of MEDLINE, EMBASE, The Cochrane Library, ISI Web of Science, and study bibliographies for empirical studies in which investigators examined subsequent full publication of results presented at a biomedical conference and reasons for nonpublication. Results The mean full publication rate was 55.9% [95% confidence interval (CI): 54.8%, 56.9%] for 24 of 27 eligible reports providing this information and 73.0% (95% CI: 71.2%, 74.7%) for seven reports of abstracts describing clinical trials. Twenty-four studies itemized 1,831 reasons for nonpublication, and six itemized 428 reasons considered the most important reason. "Lack of time" was the most frequently reported reason [weighted average = 30.2% (95% CI: 27.9%, 32.4%)] and the most important reason [weighted average = 38.4% (95% CI: 33.7%, 43.2%)]. Other commonly stated reasons were "lack of time and/or resources," "publication not an aim," "low priority," "incomplete study," and "trouble with co-authors." Conclusions Across medical specialties, the main reasons for not subsequently publishing an abstract in full lie with factors related to the abstract author rather than with journals.
Original language | English (US) |
---|---|
Pages (from-to) | 803-810 |
Number of pages | 8 |
Journal | Journal of Clinical Epidemiology |
Volume | 68 |
Issue number | 7 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jul 1 2015 |
Keywords
- Conference abstract
- Manuscript
- Nonpublication
- Publication
- Publication bias
- Selection bias
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Epidemiology
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In: Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, Vol. 68, No. 7, 01.07.2015, p. 803-810.
Research output: Contribution to journal › Review article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Authors report lack of time as main reason for unpublished research presented at biomedical conferences
T2 - A systematic review
AU - Scherer, Roberta W.
AU - Ugarte-Gil, Cesar
AU - Schmucker, Christine
AU - Meerpohl, Joerg J.
N1 - Funding Information: This systematic review showed that across biomedical scientific areas, the responsibility for not publishing abstract results as full journal articles remains primarily with abstract authors and not journals or journal editors. The expectation of journal rejection was less frequently stated as a reason for nonpublication than reasons related to inadequate time, inadequate resources, trouble with co-authors, or other factors related to the authors' perception of the importance of study results. “Lack of time” or “lack of time and/or resources” was clearly the most frequently stated reasons, whether across all studies, as the most important reason or among reports examining abstracts that described clinical trials. “Lack of time” is somewhat difficult to interpret, however, in that it could represent many things or it may be that clinical, academic, or other responsibilities intrude on time commitments. Lack of time could also be a euphemism for low priority, lack of interest in the current project, or work on other projects. The concept of an “uninteresting” study or “lack of time” has also been cited as a reason for not publishing initiated studies [37,38] . Studies that have compared the acceptance rate of positive to negative or null studies find little or no difference in the acceptance rate by journals although the proportion of positive to negative studies submitted is skewed, implying that negative studies are often not being submitted by authors [39,40] . We listed “lack of time” and “lack of time and/or resources” separately reason for two reasons. First, some investigators collected both reasons, and we could not determine when both reasons had been reported by the same abstract author and combining the two categories could result in double counting. Second, separating these as two reasons highlights the role of funding in the publication process. Usually, the scientific process begins with development of a proposal and proceeds to grant writing. If funded, the investigator then develops and conducts the research and often presents the results at a conference following submission of an abstract. By then, however, the next proposal and grant are due, with little time for full-text writing. The process of writing up the results in full, especially when the results are null or negative, then becomes less of a priority [41] . We recommend that, when possible, funding agencies provide adequate funds to allow time for dissemination of study results as peer-reviewed journal articles. Another reason cited frequently was trouble with co-authors, either relocation or shifting responsibilities for writing the final article. The existence of a dissemination plan before a study begins may ameliorate problems related to relocation or disagreements between authors. On the other hand, it is unrealistic to expect that all studies reported at conferences should be published as full journal articles. Authors noted limitations in methods, problems with equipment, recruitment, software, or ethical problems as contributing to the lack of publication. In addition, authors sometimes presented preliminary results or otherwise incomplete study data and had not written up the results in full at the time of the investigator query. It would be interesting to note when, or if, authors presenting incomplete study data transitioned to full journal publication. In addition, some authors had no reason for not publishing study results as full journal articles or stated that publication was not an aim. Presentation of a study at a meeting may have been an end in itself. Sometimes, especially with funding constraints, presentation of a article at a meeting is required to allow attendance at a meeting, so that there is no impetus to subsequently publish study results in full. Although not noted frequently, there were some instances of constraints on publication of study results in that the sponsor refused to allow subsequent publication. This constraint represents an ethical problem; study participants take part in research studies to “further science.” When the research results are not published, this implicit contract is violated because only the sponsor has access to the data. An important issue is the availability of conference abstracts for the general scientific community. Only about half of abstracts are subsequently published in full and only about 60% to 70% of clinical trials, with positive results associated with full-text publication [6] . Searching for abstracts is time consuming, and it is a matter of debate whether results presented in abstracts should be included in systematic reviews [42] . Typically, important aspects of the study design are not reported or not reported in enough detail in an abstract to include the results in a systematic review [43,44] . However, notwithstanding the poor reporting and the paucity of information, the results from abstracts should be considered as part of the evidence base, even if not published as full journal articles, to inform systematic reviews, avoid duplication of research, and improve future studies. One possible solution to the problem of data not being available outside the conference is open access of study results [45] . The National Institutes of Health, Medical Research Council, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and Wellcome Trust already have a policy of open access for journal articles. Clinical trials results should be posted in ClinicalTrials.gov , if registered, or can be made available via other open-access sources. Increased accessibility of abstracts in an electronic database may also be useful as would including a citation in the relevant trials register record to any abstract describing a clinical trial. There are some limitations of our study. First, our search strategy was not designed specifically for our systematic review; rather, it was designed to identify reports that evaluated the proportion of studies presented as abstracts and subsequently published as journal articles. We identified reports that additionally provided reasons for nonpublication from among the reports that were classified as eligible or possibly eligible for the original systematic review, including at least one report that was not eligible for the original systematic review [35] . Another limitation is the heterogeneity across reports: investigators approached abstract authors differently or requested reasons in different ways. The list of reasons for nonpublication that investigators included in their questionnaires was not the same across all reports, making comparisons across studies hard to interpret when only one or a few reports included a specific reason. Our sample may also be biased in that not all investigators who followed up the publication of abstract results gathered information on reasons for nonpublication. In addition, not all authors of abstracts responded to the investigator queries. Despite this heterogeneity, reports provided sufficient and consistent enough information to allow us to have some confidence in our finding that the main reason for authors not submitting abstract results for full publication was the authors' perception of “lack of time” or “lack of time and/or resources” and not related to journals or journal editors. Our study is also limited by the information provided by the investigators about the abstracts. For example, there was no information about the academic status or gender of the respondents, whether the abstracts were presented orally or as posters, or the study design described in the abstracts in many reports. The lack of representativeness of the reports in our review is another limitation: most of the included reports are based on US and European conferences, leading to a possible bias in our results. For example, “lack of fluency in English” was noted as a reason for nonpublication from an international conference [25] but not for any of the reports where conferences were held in Western countries. This reason may be a more prevalent reason for international conferences, or conferences held in LMIC or non–English-speaking countries, but we would not have been able to identify it as such given our sample. In addition, although many clinical specialties are represented in our study, it is not clear if the summary results are relevant for each individual specialty. In conclusion, we found that the author and not the editorial process was the main barrier to subsequent full journal publication of results presented in abstracts at conferences. To address this problem, authors and funding agencies should negotiate some protected time within the grant funding period to allow publication of most of the abstracts who do not publish results presented in full journal articles. If publication as a full journal article is not possible, then authors should deposit study results in an open-access format to ensure that study results are available to all with the aim to increase transparency in biomedical research and reduce the impact of dissemination bias. Publisher Copyright: © 2015 Elsevier Inc.
PY - 2015/7/1
Y1 - 2015/7/1
N2 - Objectives To systematically review reports that queried abstract authors about reasons for not subsequently publishing abstract results as full-length articles. Study Design and Setting Systematic review of MEDLINE, EMBASE, The Cochrane Library, ISI Web of Science, and study bibliographies for empirical studies in which investigators examined subsequent full publication of results presented at a biomedical conference and reasons for nonpublication. Results The mean full publication rate was 55.9% [95% confidence interval (CI): 54.8%, 56.9%] for 24 of 27 eligible reports providing this information and 73.0% (95% CI: 71.2%, 74.7%) for seven reports of abstracts describing clinical trials. Twenty-four studies itemized 1,831 reasons for nonpublication, and six itemized 428 reasons considered the most important reason. "Lack of time" was the most frequently reported reason [weighted average = 30.2% (95% CI: 27.9%, 32.4%)] and the most important reason [weighted average = 38.4% (95% CI: 33.7%, 43.2%)]. Other commonly stated reasons were "lack of time and/or resources," "publication not an aim," "low priority," "incomplete study," and "trouble with co-authors." Conclusions Across medical specialties, the main reasons for not subsequently publishing an abstract in full lie with factors related to the abstract author rather than with journals.
AB - Objectives To systematically review reports that queried abstract authors about reasons for not subsequently publishing abstract results as full-length articles. Study Design and Setting Systematic review of MEDLINE, EMBASE, The Cochrane Library, ISI Web of Science, and study bibliographies for empirical studies in which investigators examined subsequent full publication of results presented at a biomedical conference and reasons for nonpublication. Results The mean full publication rate was 55.9% [95% confidence interval (CI): 54.8%, 56.9%] for 24 of 27 eligible reports providing this information and 73.0% (95% CI: 71.2%, 74.7%) for seven reports of abstracts describing clinical trials. Twenty-four studies itemized 1,831 reasons for nonpublication, and six itemized 428 reasons considered the most important reason. "Lack of time" was the most frequently reported reason [weighted average = 30.2% (95% CI: 27.9%, 32.4%)] and the most important reason [weighted average = 38.4% (95% CI: 33.7%, 43.2%)]. Other commonly stated reasons were "lack of time and/or resources," "publication not an aim," "low priority," "incomplete study," and "trouble with co-authors." Conclusions Across medical specialties, the main reasons for not subsequently publishing an abstract in full lie with factors related to the abstract author rather than with journals.
KW - Conference abstract
KW - Manuscript
KW - Nonpublication
KW - Publication
KW - Publication bias
KW - Selection bias
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84930575334&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84930575334&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jclinepi.2015.01.027
DO - 10.1016/j.jclinepi.2015.01.027
M3 - Review article
C2 - 25797837
AN - SCOPUS:84930575334
SN - 0895-4356
VL - 68
SP - 803
EP - 810
JO - Journal of Clinical Epidemiology
JF - Journal of Clinical Epidemiology
IS - 7
ER -