Subsequent Full Publication of Abstracts Presented in the Annual Meetings of the Spanish Society of Cardiology

Introduction and objectives: The Spanish Society of Cardiology holds an annual national meeting with a large number of presentations but the number of full-text publications resulting from these presentations and the journals accepting these manuscripts is unknown. This study aimed to identify the full-text publication rate of accepted abstracts and to analyze the bibliometric features of subsequent publications. Methods: We randomly selected a sample of 300 oral presentations at the meetings of the Spanish Society of Cardiology in 2002, 2005 and 2008. Subsequent publications were identified through the Science Citation Index-Expanded, Scopus, Indice Medico Espanol, and Indice Bibliografico Espanol en Ciencias de la Salud. Results: Of 300 abstracts, 115 resulted in 147 full publications, representing a publication rate of 38.33%. The meeting with the highest publication rate (43%) was held in 2005. The subject category with the highest number of publications was Pediatric Cardiology/Congenital Heart Disease (58.8%). Time to full publication was usually 2 years (30.61%). Articles were published in 57 journals. The journals publishing the highest number of articles were Revista Espanola de Cardiologia (n=55; 37.41%) and the European Heart Journal (n=8; 5.44%). Conclusions: The high percentage of articles published in the upper half of journals listed in Journal Citation Reports under the category of cardiac and cardiovascular system (83%) can be taken as an objective quality indicator of the results presented at these meetings. However, more than 60% of the abstracts did not result in full publications, thus depriving the scientific community of potentially interesting results. (C) 2013 Sociedad Espanola de Cardiologia. Published by Elsevier Espana, S. L. All rights reserved.