Publication rate of abstracts presented in ConsEuro meetings held between 2003 and 2019: a bibliometric analysis

Article information

Restor Dent Endod. 2025;50.rde.2025.50.e10

Publication date (electronic) : 2025 February 19

doi : https://doi.org/10.5395/rde.2025.50.e10

Esra Cengiz-Yanardag^1,, Ayse Tugba Erturk-Avunduk¹, Izgen Karakaya²

¹Department of Restorative Dentistry, Faculty of Dentistry, Mersin University, Yenisehir, Mersin, Türkiye

²Department of Restorative Dentistry, Faculty of Dentistry, European University of Lefke, Lefke, Türkiye

Citation: Cengiz-Yanardag E, Erturk-Avunduk AT, Karakaya I. Publication rate of abstracts presented in ConsEuro meetings held between 2003 and 2019: a bibliometric analysis. Restor Dent Endod 2025;50(1):e10.

^*Correspondence to Esra Cengiz-Yanardag, DDS, PhD Department of Restorative Dentistry, Faculty of Dentistry, Mersin University, Ciftlikkoy, 33110 Yenisehir, Mersin, Türkiye Email: dtesracengiz@yahoo.com

A preprint version of this manuscript was previously published on Research Square (https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-2512985/v1).

Received 2024 August 21; Revised 2024 November 14; Accepted 2024 November 22.

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

International meetings provide valuable opportunities for researchers to share scientific knowledge and engage with colleagues and peers [1]. These events facilitate the dissemination of the latest developments and current trends within the scientific community [2]. However, abstracts submitted to such meetings often contain limited data, as they typically present preliminary research findings. As a result, these results may not be sufficiently reliable for clinical practice [3]. To maximize the impact of research and ensure broader dissemination, abstracts presented at meetings are expected to be subsequently published as full-length articles in peer-reviewed journals [1,4]. Full publication also offers personal benefits to researchers, such as enhancing their visibility in the academic field [4].

An important metric for evaluating the efficiency of scientific dissemination is the publication rate, which reflects the proportion of presentations that are later published as full-length articles in peer-reviewed journals [5]. Studies have shown that publication rates align with the scientific rigor and prestige of a meeting [6,7]. A Cochrane Review [8] reported that less than half of all studies initially presented as abstracts at meetings were published as full-length articles within 10 years, with an overall publication rate of 37.3%. In dentistry, several studies have investigated publication rates across various specialties, reporting rates ranging from 19% to 54% [1,3–5,9–14].

To the best of our knowledge, no study has assessed the publication rates of abstracts presented at the ConsEuro Congress. ConsEuro is a biannual meeting organized jointly by the European Federation of Conservative Dentistry (EFCD) and the national society of conservative dentistry of the host country. This study aimed to evaluate the publication rates of abstracts presented at ConsEuro between 2003 and 2019 using a web-scraping method and to identify factors associated with these rates.

METHODS

Abstracts presented at eight ConsEuro meetings held in 2003, 2006, 2009, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2017, and 2019 were collected from the official EFCD website (https://www.efcd.eu/conseuro-abstracts/), where congress proceedings were published with open access. The abstract book from the first ConsEuro meeting (Bologna, 2000) was unavailable on the website and thus excluded from the analysis. Additionally, abstracts from the 2021 and 2022 meetings were excluded to allow adequate time for publication. Notably, the abstracts were not categorized by presentation type (oral or poster).

Two restorative dentistry specialists (ECY and ATEA) independently conducted the research. For each abstract, the title, subspecialty, study design, number of authors, and the country of the principal investigator’s institution were recorded in Excel (Microsoft, Redmond, WA, USA). Study designs were classified into one of the following categories: basic research, clinical research, animal research, case report/series, review, and technical note. Subspecialties were categorized as bleaching, caries, dental materials, dental education, endodontics, laser therapy, operative dentistry, and preventive dentistry. In cases of uncertainty, the two researchers resolved discrepancies through consensus.

The PubMed, Google Scholar, Scopus, and Web of Science databases were searched using the following format: first author [Author] OR last author [Author] OR key word [Title/Abstract] [9]. A web-based program was developed using PHP 8.1 and MySQL to conduct the search. The titles and authors of the abstracts were transferred to the database using the PHP-to-Excel library. Web scraping was performed by connecting to PubMed, Google Scholar, Scopus, and Web of Science using the Curl library. If an abstract title was not found in any of the four databases, it was marked as unpublished. Titles that yielded results were displayed to the user through a web interface designed with HTML and JQuery. The user confirmed or rejected the matches using on-screen buttons. Once all titles were processed, the program generated a detailed report, including the total number of abstracts, the number of published abstracts, and the number of unpublished abstracts.

For abstracts confirmed as published, the following data were recorded: time to publication, the journal of publication, the journal’s impact factor (JIF) and quartile at the year of publication, index status, Scientific Journal Ranking (SJR) at the year of publication, and changes in the number of authors after publication [10]. Data on impact factor, JIF, and index status were obtained from the Journal Citation Report by Clarivate (https://jcr.clarivate.com). SJR data were retrieved from Scimago Journal & Country Rank (https://www.scimagojr.com).

Descriptive and statistical analyses were performed using SPSS version 20 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA). Normality was assessed using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Shapiro-Wilk tests. Categorical data were compared using the Pearson chi-square test, with multiple comparisons analyzed using the Bonferroni-corrected Z test. Non-normally distributed quantitative data were compared using the Kruskal-Wallis H test, with multiple comparisons analyzed using the Dunn test. Results were presented as mean ± standard deviation, median (range), or frequency (percentage). Odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals were calculated, with a significance level of p < 0.05.

RESULTS

A total of 1,426 abstracts were presented at eight ConsEuro meetings held between 2003 and 2019. As of August 1, 2024, 502 abstracts were published in peer-reviewed journals. Twenty-four abstracts were excluded because they were published prior to the congress date, resulting in 478 published abstracts and an overall publication rate of 33.5%. The number and percentage of abstracts published by congress year are shown in Table 1. There was no statistically significant difference in publication rates across years (p = 0.083).

Table 1.

The number and percentage of abstracts published according to the year of the congress

Forty-four countries were represented at the meetings, with the majority of abstracts (25.5%) originating from Italian universities. The top 10 countries with the highest number of abstracts and their corresponding publication rates are presented in Table 2. Abstracts presented at ConsEuro meetings were published in 148 different journals. The top 10 journals with the most published abstracts and their publication rates are detailed in Table 3. Descriptive statistics are provided for Tables 2 and 3, as the frequency distributions of countries and journals by publication status were not suitable for statistical comparison. The median impact factor of the journals was 1.465 (range, 0.19–7.47), and the median SJR was 0.595 (range, 0.111–3.381). Of the 478 published abstracts, 369 appeared in journals indexed in the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE), 67 in non-SCI/SCIE journals, 18 in the Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI), and 24 in the TR Index (Türkiye’s national citation index). The median time to publication was 12 months. The highest publication rates were observed in the same year as the congress (25.2%), 12 months after the congress (20.9%), and 24 months after the congress (20.1%). The median time to publication varied by location: 21.5 months for Munich, 20.5 months for Rome, 24 months for Seville, 25 months for Istanbul, 19 months for Paris, London, and Berlin, and 22 months for Bologna. Descriptive statistics for categorical features of published studies are presented in Table 4.

Table 2.

The 10 countries with the most abstracts and the corresponding publication rates

Table 3.

Top 10 ranked journals with the most published abstracts and the corresponding publication rates

Table 4.

Descriptive statistics of categorical features in published studies

Publication rates by subspecialty and study design are shown in Table 5. Abstracts related to laser therapy (43.5%), caries (44.0%), and dental materials (41.4%) had significantly higher publication rates compared to those in operative dentistry (25.7%) and dental education (25.0%) (p < 0.001). In terms of study design, basic research (38.4%), clinical research (38.6%), and animal research (50.0%) were more likely to be published than case reports/series (9.2%) and technical notes (0%) (p < 0.001).

Table 5.

Publication rate of abstracts in terms of subspeciality and study design

DISCUSSION

ConsEuro is a biannual meeting that provides researchers and clinicians with the opportunity to explore the latest advancements in conservative dentistry and present their scientific findings in the fields of preventive, restorative, esthetic dentistry, and endodontics. According to the results of this study, the publication rate of abstracts presented at ConsEuro meetings between 2003 and 2019 was 33.5%. This rate is very similar to that reported in a previous study [4], which found that 34.4% of abstracts presented at European Society of Endodontology (ESE) Congresses from 1993 to 2013 were published. These findings are further supported by other studies [9–14], which highlight that a significant proportion of submissions at dental congresses fail to progress to publication in peer-reviewed journals. The failure to publish can be attributed to various factors beyond the quality of the research itself, including time constraints, challenges in communication among co-authors, ongoing studies, and deliberate delays in publication to avoid being superseded by newer evidence [15–18]. Additionally, low publication rates may reflect the stringent acceptance criteria of peer-reviewed journals, particularly those indexed in SCI/SCIE.

A previous study [19] suggested that researchers from developing countries, where English is not the primary language, often face barriers to publishing in internationally indexed journals, despite the potential scientific value of their work. However, the results of this study do not fully support this argument, as the publication rate for the United Kingdom, where English is the native language, ranked seventh at 32.4%. In terms of the number of abstracts and publication rates, Italy and Türkiye occupied the top two positions. Italy’s high number of abstracts may be explained by the fact that two of the eight evaluated congresses were held there. Türkiye’s strong participation in this and other dental congresses, as noted in a previous study [4], has grown alongside the increasing number of dental schools in the country [20]. As of 2023, Türkiye has 104 dental schools (https://www.tdb.org.tr/), resulting in a large pool of researchers engaged in both laboratory and clinical studies. When examining publication rates by country, Table 2 reveals that Switzerland, Germany, Türkiye, and Korea ranked in the top four. Universities and research institutions in these countries often benefit from robust access to research funding and facilities, enabling researchers to conduct high-quality studies worthy of publication. Switzerland, Germany, and Korea receive substantial government and institutional support, which provides funding, resources, and incentives for researchers to publish and maintain their leadership in scientific research. Türkiye has significantly increased its research output in recent years, driven in part by national incentives for publishing in international journals, which are often required for academic promotion and institutional funding. These factors likely contribute to the higher publication rates observed in these countries.

The results of this study indicate that the top three journals in terms of publication rates were Clinical Oral Investigations (7.5%), Journal of Dentistry (5.6%), and Journal of Endodontics (5.4%). Clinical Oral Investigations, the official journal of the EFCD, has published proceedings from ConsEuro meetings since 2011, which may explain its leading position. This finding aligns with Tzanetakis et al. [4], who reported that abstracts from ESE Congresses were frequently published in the congress’s official journal, with a publication rate of 36%. Although the scope of the Journal of Endodontics is narrower compared to the Journal of Dentistry, the similar number of published abstracts may reflect the specific focus of ConsEuro, which includes endodontics. While the overall publication rates were not exceptionally high, 77.1% of the published abstracts appeared in SCIE-indexed journals, underscoring the quality of the research presented at ConsEuro.

It is important to note that the indexes maintained by Web of Science are dynamic, meaning journals are continuously evaluated and may be reassigned between indexes. Additionally, new indexes such as ESCI and the TR Index have been introduced in recent years. To mitigate the impact of this dynamic process on the study’s results, the index status of journals at the time of publication was considered.

The median time from presentation at the congress to final publication was 12 months in this study, and publication rates have declined over the years. This finding is consistent with Lee et al. [10], who reported a mean time to publication of 26.4 months for International Association for Dental Research abstracts from 2004 and 2005, with the majority published within 3 years of the meeting. Similar time lags of 16 to 22.8 months have been reported in other dental congresses [1,3,4,9,11]. The decline in publication rates over time may be linked to weakened collaboration among authors or a lack of novelty in the methods or materials used. Despite the rise of online and multidisciplinary open-access journals and increased attention to journal publishing processes in recent years, no significant differences in publication times were observed between earlier and more recent congresses. This suggests that publication timelines are influenced not only by journal processes but also by factors related to the authors and the scientific merit of the abstracts.

International meetings feature a variety of study designs that reflect the diverse fields of expertise represented. In this study, as shown in Table 5, the most common study design was basic research, accounting for 70.2% of the total published abstracts. In recent years, there has been a noticeable shift toward nonclinical experimental studies, which require less effort compared to clinical trials [20,21]. This trend aligns with the findings of Lee et al. [10], who reported that the majority of published abstracts were laboratory studies. In contrast, a previous study [1] suggested that randomized controlled clinical trials were more likely to be published due to their rigorous scientific conclusions, which are highly valued by journals. Although clinical trials better simulate real-world clinical conditions, their lower prevalence may be attributed to the challenges of conducting such studies, including difficulties in recruiting human volunteers and obtaining ethics committee approval [4,22]. Among subspecialties, animal research had the highest publication rate (50.0%), likely due to the stringent study design and planning required for such research. Statistical analysis revealed that basic research (38.4%), clinical research (38.6%), and animal research (50.0%) were more likely to be published than case reports/series (9.2%) and technical notes (0%) (p < 0.001). This discrepancy may be partly explained by the reluctance of high-impact SCIE-indexed journals to publish case reports and technical notes. For instance, only four out of 22 case reports/series in this study were published in SCIE-indexed journals. A previous study [7] suggested that the low publication rates of case reports and technical notes might reflect participants’ intent to share their findings with a broader audience rather than pursue full-text publication.

Analyzing subspecialty topics at international meetings can provide insights into current trends within specific fields [10]. This study found that the majority of research focused on operative dentistry, dental materials, and endodontics. Publication rates for abstracts related to laser therapy (43.5%), caries (44%), and dental materials (41.4%) were significantly higher than those for operative dentistry (25.7%) and dental education (25.0%) (p < 0.001). Although the number of abstracts in laser therapy was relatively low, its high publication rate (43.5%) may reflect its status as a novel and emerging field. Conversely, dental education had the lowest publication rate (25.0%), consistent with findings from a previous study [1], which noted a scarcity of dental education studies at the International Association of Paediatric Dentistry meetings between 1999 and 2006. Galang et al. [11] attributed this to limited opportunities for submission in this field. Despite current research trends, further publications in areas like dental education should be encouraged. The lower publication rates for operative dentistry studies remain unclear, as the scope and range of journals suitable for this topic are extensive. The high number of abstracts in operative dentistry may partially explain its lower publication rate.

A potential limitation of this study is that some full-text publications in local databases may have been overlooked due to the exclusive use of international databases. Additionally, abstracts published before the meetings were excluded from the analysis, and many abstracts may still be under review or pending publication, which could have influenced the results. Barriers and facilitators to publication were not explored and should be the focus of future research. Furthermore, publications after the study’s cutoff date (August 2024) were not included, meaning some articles may have been published later.

Although not explicitly acknowledged as a limitation, the lack of classification between oral and poster presentations at ConsEuro may have contributed to lower publication rates. Previous studies have consistently shown that orally presented abstracts have significantly higher publication rates than poster presentations [1,3,6,9,13]. Oral presentations typically feature high-quality studies intended to highlight research with the greatest potential impact on clinical practice [14]. However, due to the unavailability of data, it was not possible to distinguish between oral and poster presentations at ConsEuro.

A key strength of this study was the development of a web-based program, which minimizes errors associated with manual searches. This approach improved the accuracy of the searches, saved time, and facilitated simultaneous searches across multiple databases [23].

As stated in the Declaration of Helsinki, “Researchers have a duty to make publicly available the results of their research on human subjects and are accountable for the completeness and accuracy of their reports” [24,25]. However, the low publication rates of abstracts and delays in full-text publication raise ethical concerns and may be viewed as scientific misconduct, leading to the avoidable waste of significant time and resources [25].

CONCLUSIONS

Between 2003 and 2019, the average publication rate of abstracts presented at ConsEuro meetings was 33.5%. Publication rates were influenced by study design and subspecialty and declined over the years. The majority of abstracts were submitted by researchers from Italian universities, and Italy ranked first in terms of publication rates. Researchers predominantly preferred journals indexed in SCI/SCIE with high impact factor quartiles for publication. The median time to publication was 12 months.

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