Publication rates of scientific papers presented at the Otorhinolaryngological Research Society meetings

The aim of this study was to determine the publication rate of scientific p apers in peer review journals presented at the Otorhinolaryngological Resea rch Society (ORS) meetings from 1978 to 1995 inclusive. The abstracts of th e presentations at ORS meetings are published in Clinical Otolaryngology. A MEDLINE search was performed on abstracts presented at ORS meetings from 1 978 to 1995 using both authors and key words within the text of the abstrac t. The publication rate, journal of publication, time to publication, chang e in contents, change in authors and change in conclusions of abstracts wer e tabulated. The publication rate for papers presented at ORS meetings from 1978 to 1995 was 69.09%. The average time to publication was 22.5 months. Papers derived from the ORS abstracts were most commonly published in Clini cal Otolaryngology (34%) and Journal of Laryngology and Otology (18.64%). T he results indicate that nearly 69% of presented material at the biannual O RS meetings eventually gel published in peer reviewed journals. This compar es favourably with publication rate of other specialities.