CHARACTERISTICS OF UNPUBLISHED RESEARCH AND REASONS FOR FAILURE TO PUBLISH

Ellen J Weber,¹ Michael L Callaham,¹ Robert L Wears,² Christopher Barton,³ and Gary P Young^4
1Division of Emergency Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, Box 0208, L-138, San Francisco, CA 94143-0208, USA; ²Division of Emergency Medicine, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA; ³Department of Emergency Medicine, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA; ⁴Department of Emergency Medicine, Highland General Hospital, San Francisco, CA, USA

Objective: We hypothesized that authors of research rejected from a scientific meeting are less likely to pursue publication than those whose studies are accepted.

Design: Abstracts submitted to the major 1991 emergency medicine meeting and not published within 5 years were rated by 2 blinded reviewers for scientific characteristics, study quality (overall scientific solidity), and originality. Authors of the 279 unpublished papers were sent questionnaires. Data was analyzed using Fisher's exact test and Student's t-test with 95% CI for differences between means.

Results: A total of 493 abstracts were submitted to the meeting and 179 were accepted for presentation. Thirty-four percent (104) of rejected studies vs 61% (110) of those accepted were ultimately published. Fifty-four percent (151) of investigators answered the questionnaire: 107 (35%) of those with rejected abstracts and 44 (25%) of those with accepted abstracts. Thirty-five (23%) of the responding authors had completed a manuscript: 21% (20) of those rejected, 38% (15) of those accepted (P=.05). Study quality for abstracts with completed manuscripts was 2.41 vs 2.50 for those without manuscripts (0.09, -0.27 -0.44). Originality of studies with manuscripts was 1.58 vs 1.56 for those with no manuscript (0.02; -0.23 -0.19). Seventy-seven percent of abstracts with manuscripts had positive results vs 60% of those without manuscripts (P=.34). Effect size was 0.16 for abstracts with manuscripts vs 0.33 for those without manuscripts (0.17; -0.20 -.54). Twenty-eight percent of authors (30) whose abstracts had been rejected from the meeting felt their results were not important or unlikely to be published vs 5% (2) of those whose abstracts were accepted (P<.001). Logistic regression will be performed when results from a follow-up mailing to nonresponding authors are complete.

Conclusions: Objective differences do not explain why research is not published. Most authors never wrote a manuscript. Rejection of abstracts submitted to scientific meetings may discourage manuscript preparation and submission to journals.

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