Journey from conference presentation to peer-reviewed publication: Do ends really meet?

Introduction: The National Conference (NATCON) of Anatomical Society of India (ASI) is the preeminent meeting of anatomists in South-east Asia region. In the present study we undertook a quantitative assessment of the abstracts presented orally in three NATCON of ASI held between 2013 and 2015, with regards to rate of subsequent publication in peer reviewed journals. Methods: A detailed electronic literature search was undertaken in indexation databases such as Medline, PubMed, Scopus, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, CINAHL & Google Scholar to determine whether abstract has been published or not. For abstracts eventually published we noted the time-interval from presentation to publication and the impact factor of the journal when available. Results: The effective abstract-to-publication ratio (EAPR) for the three NATCON's from 2013 to 2015 were noted as 0.034, 0.041 & 0.024 respectively. Survival plot analysis revealed probability of publication increases with time and time-interval adjusted survival plot analysis showed similar shape of curves for all three NATCON's. Median impact factor of journals for the three NATCON's were found to be similar with no statistical significance of the difference in values (Kruskal WallisP= 0.883). Discussion: Documented EAPR values could be used as benchmark to assess quality of future anatomy conferences in India. Analysis of observations showed that probability for improvement in publication rates for NATCON is on the higher side and there is uniformity in standard of research presented in NATCON. Publication rates could further improve with workshops dedicated towards cultivation of research output among young researchers. (C) 2018 Anatomical Society of India. Published by Elsevier, a division of RELX India, Pvt. Ltd. All rights reserved.