Predictors of Publication Rates for Abstracts Presented at the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy Annual Meetings.

Objective. To examine trends in manuscript publication rates for abstracts presented at the 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2015 American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) annual meetings. Methods. A systematic search of PubMed, Scopus, and Google Scholar was performed. "New" colleges and schools of pharmacy were defined as receiving accreditation after 1996. Contingency tables and t-tests were applied. Results. There were 1382 abstracts evaluated. The overall publication rate was 20% and there was no difference in publication rates over 15 years. The median time to publication for years 2000, 2005, and 2010 was 15 months. The most frequent journal for publication was the American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education. The primary analysis identified several predictors for publication, including collaboration, presence of a PhD pharmaceutical program or academic medical center, and use of inferential statistics. There was no difference in manuscript publication when comparing "new" and legacy schools. Conclusion. The publication rate of AACP abstracts has remained steady despite the increase in pharmacy schools and colleges and faculty. Collaboration among institutions was the strongest predictor for publication, highlighting its importance. The low publication rate observed may be attributed to a lack of training for junior faculty, insufficient forums to publish work, or misaligned motivations for scholarship among faculty. These barriers should be examined further.