Publication Barriers of Oral Abstracts From the American College of Foot and Ankle Surgeons: 2010–2014

Despite possessing the highest oral abstract publication incidence for any national foot and ankle society conference to date (76.9%), it remains unclear why almost a quarter of the oral abstracts accepted to the annual American College of Foot and Ankle Surgeons (ACFAS) conference fail to achieve journal publication. The purpose of the present study was to assess the publication barriers of oral abstracts from the ACFAS conference: 2010 to 2014. Unpublished oral abstracts from the temporal period were procured from a database. A questionnaire was then distributed to the primary authors to determine the current status of the abstract, as well as the reasons for the failure to pursue or achieve journal publication. Of the 25 oral abstracts that failed to achieve journal publication before July 1, 2017, a total of 11 questionnaires were completed. At the time of the survey, 4 oral abstracts had since been published in a journal, 1 had been published outside of a journal, and 6 had never been submitted for publication consideration. An insufficient amount of time for manuscript preparation (42%), difficulties with co-authors (30%), and a low perceived priority (17%) were the 3 primary reasons authors cited for the failure to publish. Based on the principal barriers identified, a series of recommendations have been proposed to improve the future publication incidence of oral abstracts from the ACFAS conference and research productivity amongst foot and ankle surgeons.