Pathways to Publication in Pediatric Hospital Medicine Educational Research

OBJECTIVES: Dissemination of rigorous, innovative educational research is key to inform best practices among the global medical education community. Although abstract presentation at professional conferences is often the first step, journal publication maximizes impact. The current state of pediatric hospital medicine (PHM) educational scholarship dissemination via journal publication has not been well described. To describe educational research dissemination after PHM conference abstract submission, we identified the publication rate, median time to publication, and median publishing journal impact factor of abstracts submitted over 4 years.

METHODS: Abstract data were obtained from the 2014–2017 PHM conferences and organized by presentation type (oral, poster, rejected). PubMed, MedEdPORTAL, and Google Scholar were queried for abstract publication evidence. We used logistic regression models, Kaplan-Meier survival curves and Kruskal-Wallis tests to determine the association of presentation type with the odds of publication, time to publication, and publishing journal impact factors.

RESULTS: Of 173 submitted educational research abstracts, 56 (32%) were published. Oral abstracts had threefold greater and fivefold greater odds of publication compared to poster and rejected abstracts, respectively (odds ratio 3.2; 95% confidence interval 1.3–8.0; P = .011; odds ratio 5.2; 95% confidence interval 1.6–16.7; P = .003). Median time to publication did not differ between presentation types. The median journal impact factor was >2 times higher for published oral and poster abstracts than published rejected abstracts.

CONCLUSIONS: Because abstract acceptance and presentation type may be early indicators of publication success, abstract submission to the PHM conference is a reasonable first step in disseminating educational scholarship.