Publication Rates of Abstracts Presented at Pediatric Orthopaedic Society of North America Meetings Between 2013 and 2016.

Background: Academic conferences such as the annual Pediatric Orthopaedic Society of North America (POSNA) meeting provide opportunities to present up-to-date scientific work that can influence clinical decision making. This study reviewed 4 years of abstracts presented at POSNA to assess trends in poster and podium presentation publication rates and associated metrics and the impact of academic presentations on the pediatric orthopaedic literature.

Methods: All abstracts presented at POSNA annual meetings from 2013 to 2016 were analyzed for presentation type, subspeciality, level of evidence, study design, peer-reviewed publication within 4 years of presentation, 1-year publication rates, journal impact factors, number of authors, and citations of the final publication. χ2, analysis of variance, and t tests were conducted to measure independence of variables. Statistical significance was indicated at P<0.05.

Results: A total of 1135 abstracts were included with 676 published in peer-reviewed journals by August 2020 and 38 excluded because of publication before presentation. The number of accepted abstracts increased yearly. Total of 58.2% of POSNA abstracts were published and 42.5% had the same first author on the final manuscript. Average journal impact factor was 2.60±1.30 with a mean 14.3±16.0 citations. Podium presentations were significantly more likely to be published than poster presentations (63.1% vs. 51.2%, P<0.001) and in higher-impact factor journals. Level I evidence abstracts were published in journals with an average 1.663 higher impact factor than level V evidence abstracts, with no significant difference between overall publication rate and study type (P=0.69) or level of evidence (P=0.95) for podium presentations. The Journal of Pediatric Orthopaedics accepted the most abstracts, 38.4% overall, with 64.1% of acceptances resulting from podium presentations and no difference in time to publication based on subspecialty.

Conclusions: The overall publication rate for POSNA abstracts has increased 8.7% from prior analysis. Podium presentations are more likely than poster presentations to be published, overall and in higher-impact journals, and are cited more frequently.

Level Of Evidence: Level IV-descriptive retrospective epidemiological study.