Abstract
BackgroundNigeria is one of the top three countries in Africa in terms of science research output and Nigerian urologists’ biomedical research output contributes to this. Each year, urologists in Nigeria gather to present their recent research at the conference of the Nigerian Association of Urological Surgeons (NAUS). These abstracts are not thoroughly vetted as are full length manuscripts published in peer reviewed journals but the information they disseminate may affect clinical practice of attendees. This study aims to describe the characteristics of abstracts presented at the annual conferences of NAUS, the quality of the abstracts as determined by the subsequent publication of full length manuscripts in peer-review indexed journals and the factors that influence such successful publication.Methodss presented at the 2007 to 2010 NAUS conferences were identified through conference abstracts books. Using a strict search protocol, publication in peer-reviewed journals was determined. The abstracts characteristics were analyzed and their quality judged by subsequent successful publishing of full length manuscripts. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS 16.0 software to determine factors predictive of successful publication.ResultsOnly 75 abstracts were presented at the NAUS 2007 to 2010 conferences; a quarter (24%) of the presented abstracts was subsequently published as full length manuscripts. Median time to publication was 15 months (range 2–40 months). Manuscripts whose result data were analyzed with ‘beyond basic’ statistics of frequencies and averages were more likely to be published than those with basic or no statistics.ConclusionsQuality of the abstracts and thus subsequent publication success is influenced by the use of ‘beyond basic’ statistics in analysis of the result data presented. There is a need for improvement in the quality of urological research from Nigeria.
Highlights
Nigeria is one of the top three countries in Africa in terms of science research output and Nigerian urologists’ biomedical research output contributes to this
The purpose of this study is to determine the characteristics of abstracts presented at the annual conferences of the Nigerian Association of Urological Surgeons (NAUS), the quality of the research as determined by their subsequent publication in peer-review indexed journals and the factors that influence successful publication
Assessment of successful publication: Subsequent publication of full length manuscripts in indexed journals was assessed by searching through PubMed, Google Scholar and African Journal Online (AJOL) databases using a strict search algorithm adapted from a similar study (Figure 1) [3]
Summary
Nigeria is one of the top three countries in Africa in terms of science research output and Nigerian urologists’ biomedical research output contributes to this. Urologists in Nigeria gather to present their recent research at the conference of the Nigerian Association of Urological Surgeons (NAUS) These abstracts are not thoroughly vetted as are full length manuscripts published in peer reviewed journals but the information they disseminate may affect clinical practice of attendees. Apart from the dissemination of knowledge in the form of published research articles, conferences and meetings are additional avenues for sharing of scientific information usually in the form of abstracts presented at such gatherings These abstracts do not usually undergo the vigorous peer-review process used by most traditional journals in selecting manuscripts to be published but their unvetted results are communicated to attendees and may influence negatively their clinical practice. The purpose of this study is to determine the characteristics of abstracts presented at the annual conferences of the Nigerian Association of Urological Surgeons (NAUS), the quality of the research as determined by their subsequent publication in peer-review indexed journals and the factors that influence successful publication
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