PP14 Lost research? An analysis of publication trends of posters presented at the 999EMS research forum

<h3>Background</h3> Conference posters represent a significant investment of effort, but research in emergency medicine and related fields suggests that over 50% (Sherer et al. 2018) of posters are not subsequently published in journals, limiting the dissemination to conference attendees and published abstracts, if they exist. <h3>Methods</h3> All poster abstracts for the 2021-23 999EMS Research Forum Annual Conferences are published in the Emergency Medicine Journal. Using this as a dataset, and through regular database investigations, using search strings based on title, keywords and authors, we tracked the resulting ratio of conference posters ultimately published in journals. <h3>Results</h3> Number of posters presented: 2021 (<b>41</b>) 2022 (<b>34</b>) 2023 (<b>59</b>) Posters indexed on amber: 2021(<b>1</b>) 2022 (<b>4</b>) 2023 (<b>55</b>) Subsequent articles published to May 2024: 2021 (<b>13</b>) 2022 (<b>11</b>) 2023 (<b>17</b>) Ratio of posters to publications as a percentage: 2021 (<b>32%</b>) 2022 (<b>32%</b>) 2023 (<b>29%</b>) Articles published in Top Quartile IF Journals: 2021 (<b>29%</b>) 2022 (<b>18%</b>) 2023 (<b>11%</b>) The initial 3 years of data analysis show a similar percentage ratio (32%) of posters to publications in each year. Typically, we expect the percentage of posters that transfer to journal articles to increase over time. However, the plateauing effect may indicate that only one-third of posters transfer to final journal publication, raising questions about the potential loss of over 60% of research output. We have enhanced the results through an analysis of journal impact factors, Altmetrics and citations, to analyse the research quality. We note that of the posters that achieve publication only a small percentage are published in top quartile Impact Factored (IF) journals. <h3>Conclusion</h3> Currently c30% of 999EMS Research Forum posters are subsequently published. For the future we will record: 1) the effect of the time lag (up to 5 years) on publication rates; 2) journal article metrics; 3) and initiate a further study on the reasons for non-publication. <h3>Reference</h3> Scherer RW, <i>et al</i>. Full publication of results initially presented in abstracts. <i>Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews</i> 2018;Issue 11. Art. No.: MR000005. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.MR000005.pub4