Assessing the Quality of Evidence Presented at Annual General Meetings: A 5-Year Retrospective Study

Abstract

Introduction: Health care professionals rely on annual general meetings (AGMs) to obtain up-to-date information and practice guidelines relevant to their specialty. The majority of such information at meetings is presented through abstract sessions. However, the quality of the evidence presented during such abstract sessions is unclear. Standardized measures were applied to assess the quality of evidence of abstracts presented at the Canadian Society of Nephrology AGM over a 5-year period. Methods: Two authors independently reviewed all CSN AGM abstracts presented from 2012 to 2016. Using a schema published in 2011 by the Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine (OCEBM), each abstract was subsequently ranked based on the quality of evidence. Schema categories ranged from level I, representing the highest evidence quality, to level V, representing the lowest. The number of authors and the authors' institution affiliations were also collected from the abstracts, where available, or if affiliations were unclear, an internet search of the author was performed. Results: Six hundred forty-two articles were screened. In total, 70% (n = 450) met the inclusion criteria. When assessed, 15% of articles were level I (highest quality), 17% level II, 53% level III, 12% level IV, and 3% level V (lowest quality). A Jonckheere–Terpstra test demonstrated a significant trend of increasing quality of evidence (P < .05) and collaboration (P < .005) over the 5-year study period. There was a significant correlation between level of evidence and collaboration across years reviewed in the study, rs(98) = −0.226, P < .001. Discussion: The results indicate a consistent increase in quality of evidence and collaborative submissions over time. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first assessment and analysis of AGM presentation quality within internal medicine and its subspecialties. Documenting and monitoring changes in the quality of evidence with a standardized framework may offer valuable insight pertaining to the medical field and the research community.

Assessing the Level of Evidence of Presented Studies at the Brazilian Congress of Coloproctology

“…In addition, it was observed that from 2017 to 2019 there was a significant decrease in the number of studies with level 2 evidence, while the number of studies with level 5 evidence increased. This data was in contradiction with the literature about other congresses, especially in nephrology and orthopedics, 1 where an improvement in the quality of the level of evidence has been observed over the last few years. According to Zamir et al , the quality of evidence presented at the annual congress of the Canadian Society of Nephrology has increased in the last 5 years, and these results are comparable to those of similar studies in other disciplines; for example, the quality of evidence presented at the annual orthopedic surgery congresses has also increased over time.…”

“…Employing methodological principles of evidence-based medicine from increasingly controlled studies has the potential to improve the quality and safety of medical practice in the community. 1 However, few studies address the level of evidence in congresses and scientific meetings around the world. Especially in Brazil, scientific publications have grown about 10.7% compared to previous years.…”

Digitalization of Institutions of Corporate Law: Current Trends and Future Prospects

“…(1) the practice of using electronic voting in elections to state bodies (Russian and foreign experience) (Mellon et al 2017;Toots et al 2016;Alekseev 2018); (2) the technological features of electronic voting (Yang et al 2018;Shukla et al 2018; Trubochkina and Poliakov 2019) (3) on holding meetings of shareholders and boards of directors by means of electronic voting (Fontenot 2018;Chekhovskaya 2018a); (4) the introduction of information technologies into the practice of holding general meetings of shareholders of foreign and Russian corporations in terms of agency costs, reducing the number of intermediaries between a shareholder and a company, and influencing the activity of investors (Gao et al 2020;Sharma et al 2018;Zamir et al 2019).…”

Rethinking Our Annual Congress—Meeting the Needs of Specialist Physicians by Partnering With Provincial Simulation Centers

“…Despite the challenges associated with attending annual meetings (such as limited time and cost), physicians often rely on these congresses to maintain and improve their clinical knowledge. 16 It offers a unique attractiveness for participants to attend a variety of educational programs geared to their needs. Over the past decade, we have seen a constant increase in participation at our annual interdisciplinary congress.…”