ORIGINAL ARTICLE The publication rates of abstracts presented at the Turkish Respiratory Society (TUSAD) annual congress: adequate or not? Sibel G€unay 1 | Muzaffer Sariaydin 2 | Sevinc Sarinc-Ulasli 3 | Ersin G€unay 2 | Secil Demir 2 | Mehmet Unlu 2 1 Clinic of Chest Diseases, Afyon State Hospital, Afyonkarahisar, Turkey 2 Department of Chest Diseases, Faculty of Medicine, Afyon Kocatepe University, Afyonkarahisar, Turkey 3 Department of Chest Diseases, Faculty of Medicine, Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey Correspondence Sibel G€unay, Chest Diseases Clinic, Afyon State Hospital, 03200 Afyonkarahisar, Turkey. Email: sibelgunay@gmail.com Abstract Objective: In this study, we aimed to determine the publication status of the abstracts presented at the Turkish Respiratory Society Congress between 2011 and 2014. Methods: The abstracts were classified according to presentation type (oral presenta- tions, poster discussion, etc.), study type, study design, topic, publication status, time interval between the presentation and the publication date, and the journal in which the article was published. The conversion rate of presentations into full-text articles in peer-reviewed journals were surveyed through Elsevier’s Scopus. Results: The total number of abstracts submitted in the congress was 2 009. In terms of study type, the majority of abstracts were case reports (56.4%) and the remainder was original research. Totally, 179 abstracts were published in an indexed journal with an overall publication rate of 8.9%. 18.3% of oral presentations were converted into full-text article. Publication rates according to study types were 14.8% for origi- nal researches and 4.4% for case reports. The first three subspecialties with the highest publication rates were “sleep related breathing disorders” (16.9%), “interven- tional pulmonology” (16.7%) and “pleural diseases” (15.2%). Median publication/ acceptance time was 8.0 months (0–38). Conclusion: This is the first study evaluating the publication rates of abstracts pre- sented in a respiratory congress. Although the number of presented abstracts in the congress increased year by year, prominently in the case reports, over all conversion rates were decreased. We put forward that encouraging the authors to conduct higher-quality investigations would raise the publication rate as well as improve the scientific quality of congress. KEYWORDS abstract, annual congress, oral presentation, peer-reviewed publication, poster presen- tation, publication rate, respiratory medicine 1 | INTRODUCTION There are two important ways to share a scientific article with a scientific world. One of them is to exhibit a precious study as a poster/oral presentation in a scientific meeting or congress, the other one is to publish them in a scientific jour- nal as a full-text article. Presentation of a current research or recently obtained information in a congress or meeting is very important for scientists in terms of guidance to future studies. Moreover, studies presented at a national or interna- tional congress can only reach and attract attention of a lim- ited participant. However, to reach a wider researcher, publication of this presentation in a scientific journal is required. Publication of the abstracts as a full-text article The Clinical Respiratory Journal 2016; 00: 00-00 wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/crj VC 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd | 1 Received: 14 December 2015 | Accepted: 24 May 2016 DOI 10.1111/crj.12505