High non publication rate from publication professionals hinders evidence-based publication practices: a replication study in Europe

Background: Although publication professionals plan and facilitate the timely and high-quality reporting of clinical trial results, it has been previously shown that they are not as forthcoming when it comes to publishing their own professional research. The publication rate from abstracts presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Society for Medical Publication Professionals (ISMPP) has been shown to be 2.4%. We performed a replication study based on the European Meeting of ISMPP to determine the equivalent publication rate.

Methods: ISMPP European Meeting abstract lists (November 2011–January 2016), were searched in July 2016 and extracted into a copy of the original study spreadsheet. MEDLINE was searched in August 2016 to determine the publication rate.

Results: From 2011 to 2016, 76 abstracts were submitted of which 60 were accepted (78.9%). We found three corresponding publications (publication rate 5.0%). Most studies were observational (50/60; 83.3%) and most abstracts included employees of medical communications agencies as authors (50/60; 83.3%). Most researchers were based in Europe (165/222; 74.3%) or the US (53/222; 23.9%).

Discussion: This study confirms previous findings that the publication rate of member research from ISMPP meetings in the peer-reviewed literature is low. Members of ISMPP, and of other organizations who aspire to set professional standards, should be encouraged to conduct robust research and share it with the academic community.