Publication rates of abstracts presented at the World Congress on Pain held by the International Association for the Study of Pain in 2010

Objective To examine publication rates of the full texts of abstracts presented at the 2010 World Congress on Pain (WCP) of the International Association for the Study of Pain. Methods Poster presentations published in the abstract booklet of the 13th WCP in 2010 were examined. The post-congress status of each abstract was investigated by searching titles, first author, and co-authors, in order, using local search engines. The year of publication, country, index, impact factor (IF) of the publishing journal, and name and title consistencies between the abstract and published text were recorded. Results A total 1907 poster presentations were investigated. Of these, 525 (27.5%) were published in scientific journals. The most poster presentations (402, 37%) were from the United States. The most published presentations appeared in scientific journals in 2011. Science Citation Index (SCI), SCI Expanded, and Emerging Sources Citation Index published 491 abstracts as full texts. The mean IF of journals in which articles were published was 3.90 +/- 3.64. Conclusions As with scientific journals, a communication process should be established with authors during assessment of poster presentations at congresses regarding critical progression and rectification of deficiencies, which will increase the likelihood of presentation abstracts being published.