Introduction: Any research to evaluate how a conference was performed, whether the initial goals were achieved and where to go next sounds essential. In addition, the research in this respect uncovers strong and weak points for further planning of academic congresses.
Objectives: The aim of the present study was to evaluate the quality of academic congresses held in military medicine and navy preventive medicine based on the proceeding abstracts.
Materials and Methods: In this descriptive cross-sectional study, the abstracts published in most military health and navy preventive medicine (during 2001-2014) in Iran were evaluated. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics by the SPSS 16 software.
Results: Results showed that the majority of the accepted articles (more than 70%) were non-research articles. Regarding the research articles, most of the articles were based on the questionnaire and interview (less than 25%) and there were a few articles with laboratory and clinical findings (less than 16%). In both groups (military medicine and navy preventive medicine), the corresponding authors of most of the articles’ abstracts were not affiliated to the AJA Medical Universities. The structure of the abstracts which appeared in the proceedings needed more efforts to match the proper standards.
Discussion and Conclusion: The findings of the present study show that despite organizing a fair number of conferences, there still remains principles to stick to and rules to follow. Our finding urges policy makers to utilize all means available to elicit maturity and conduct fundamental, basic, translational and clinical trials up to the standards of the military health department visions.