More insight into the fate of biomedical meeting abstracts: a systematic review

Table 1 Flow 1, from submission to acceptance. Meeting characteristics associated with abstract acceptance

Meeting characteristic	Number of abstracts	Odds ratio*	95% conf. interval
Year (median: 1990)
1990 or before	8828	1.00
After 1990	6117	1.55	1.43–1.68
Country
US	12540	1.00
Other^§	2405	1.50	1.33–1.69
Size (median: 89 abstracts)
Smaller than median	2764	1.00
Larger than median	12181	1.35	1.22–1.49
Speciality ^†
Surgery	1594	1.00
Paediatrics	4634	1.19	1.02–1.39
Internal medicine	4182	1.50	1.30–1.72

*Odds ratio > 1 indicates a higher likelihood of acceptance compared with the reference group. ^§Canada, Germany, UK ^†Only specialities with 5 or more meetings are included