INTRODUCTIONA scientific congress is an environment in which physicians with the same specialty and other health staff participate in, the results of which is shared as abstracts, and in which ideas are exchanged with one another. The abstracts presented in scientific congresses (oral/poster) are evaluated by the commissions that are assigned by the congress scientific committee during the preparation period of the congress and it is decided if the studies will be accepted in the congress or not.The publication of abstracts in national/international peer-reviewed journals after the congress is one of the indicators of the scientific value of the congress. In a Cochrane meta-analysis published in 2007, it was stated that the publication rate of the abstracts presented in a congress was 44.5% (1). Articles evaluating the conversion rate of the abstracts presented in international congresses into publications are limited. Similarly, the number of studies that are conducted in order to reveal the scientific efficiency of national congresses held in our country is also low. In these studies, it is reported that the conversion rate of the abstracts presented in the congresses to publications is very limited (between 5.7% and 28.6%) (2-7).Turkish Society of Colorectal Surgery (TSCRS) organizes periodic scientific activities in order to develop the professional, scientific and social relationships between its members in accordance with its aims. The congresses of TSCRS, which are organized once in two years, are one of the important scientific activities. In our study, we aimed to define the conversion rate of the abstracts presented in the congresses organized in 2003, 2007, 2009 and 2011 to articles in peer-reviewed journals, to determine the factors (presentation type, study type, congress year etc.) effecting publication rate.
MATERIAL AND METHODSThe abstracts of oral presentations (OP) and poster presentations (PP) presented at the TSCRS congresses in