A critical evaluation of free paper abstracts accepted for the 1996 RACS Annual Scientific Congress

Background: Abstracts form a major part of medical information dissemination and a measure by which papers are accepted for meetings. Concerns have been raised about the quality of abstracts presented to the Annual Scientific Congress (ASC) and second, about the validity of the term 'scientific' to describe this meeting. Methods: A critical evaluation was made of all free paper abstracts in general surgery from the ASC 1996, using a standard assessment process. They were judged on presentation and content. A direct comparison was made to the content of abstracts from the Surgical Research Society of Australasia 1995(SRSA) meeting. Results: The ASC abstracts scored 87% (6.1/7.0) for presentation but with clear deficiencies. The score of 49% (7.4/15.0) for the content of the ASC abstracts was significantly less than the score of 65% (9.8/15.0) that was attained by the SRSA abstracts when assessed on content. (Wilcoxon rank sum test, P < 0.000002.) Conclusions: The quality of the presentation of abstracts was adequate but could clearly be improved, especially with regard to the specific instructions to authors. The ASC abstracts were significantly less scientific in content that those of the SRSA abstracts. The criteria used to select abstracts for the ASC should be reviewed and the title of the annual College meeting should be reconsidered.