Manuscript publication of abstracts presented at gynecologic surgery societies’ annual meetings

Purpose: To study characteristics and identify factors associated with full manuscript publication of oral abstracts presented at gynecologic surgery societies’ annual meetings. Study design: We reviewed all oral abstracts presented at four major gynecologic surgery meetings in 2018. Oral abstracts subsequently published as peer-reviewed manuscripts were compared to those that were not published. Descriptive statistical analysis and multivariable regression analyses were conducted to identify factors associated with peer-reviewed manuscript publication. Results: A total of 396 oral presentation abstracts from the four nationally recognized gynecologic societies were identified. The overall journal publication rate was 47.4% (188/396). The rate of publication of oral abstracts was 35.1% (72/205) for those presented at AAGL, 73.8% (62/84) for AUGS, 53.2% (42/79) for SGO and 42.9% (12/28) for SGS. In multivariable regression analysis, last author’s H-index [aOR 95% CI 1.02 (1.00–1.03)], academic center affiliation [aOR 95% CI 2.29 (1.20–4.37)], and randomized controlled trials [aOR 95% CI 2.47 (1.12–5.47)] were associated with journal publication. Of the published articles, the median time to publication was 3.0 years [1.0–5.0], the median journal impact factor was 3.9 [1.8–4.8], the median relative citation ratio was 1.0 [0.4–1.9], and the median number of citations per year was 2.0 [1.0–4.1]. Conclusions: In the field of gynecologic surgery, several factors, including the last researcher’s H-index, academic affiliation, randomized controlled trial design and type of societal meeting are associated with increased odds of an oral abstract ultimately reaching full manuscript peer-reviewed publication. These findings can serve researchers in the fields of gynecologic surgical subspecialties.