Medico-Legal Update
  • Year: 2012
  • Volume: 12
  • Issue: 2

Study of Anatomy of Abstracts of Original Articles Published in Indian Journals of Surgical Origin

  • Author:
  • Saurabh Goel1, Namita Agrawal2, Madhubala K Karne3, Prem Prakash1, Farhanul Huda4, Sudhir Kumar Thakur4
  • Total Page Count: 4
  • Page Number: 163 to 166

1Assistant Professor, Dept of Surgery, Saraswathi Institute of Medical Sciences, Anwarpur, Hapur, Uttar Pradesh

2Assistant Professor, Deptt. of OBG, Saraswathi Institute of Medical Sciences, Anwarpur, Hapur, Uttar Pradesh

3Assistant Professor, Dept of General Surgery, Saraswathi Institute of Medical Sciences, Anwarpur, Hapur, Uttar Pradesh

4Associate Professor, Dept. of Surgery, Saraswathi Institute of Medical Sciences, Anwarpur, Hapur, Uttar Pradesh

Online published on 17 November, 2012.

Abstract

Abstract of any biomedical publication summarises the information provided in the article and may be the only substantive portion of the article available in many electronic databases. This study was conducted to assess the reporting patterns of abstracts in selected medical journals of India related with surgical field. It examined the anatomy of abstracts of original articles of selected journals (structured or nonstructured and if structured which format). Though some studies have been conducted on this topic abroad but this is a unique attempt in our country.

Five peer reviewed journals of surgical origin were selected at random. The study included 386 abstracts of original articles from 2005–2009. The web sites of all the journals in the study provided the input.

Out of 386 of total abstracts 311 were structured and 75 were nonstructured. Out of 5 journals selected for study 4 gave special instructions for formatting of abstracts under different subheadings and one of them though requested for structured abstract, but was silent on the issue of formatting. Out of 311 structured abstracts 4 subheadings abstracts were 213(68.48%).

From the study it was clear that till date the editors of these peer reviewed journals, though agreed on structured abstracts, and were not particular as far as formatting of abstracts of original articles were concerned. Abstracts with four subheadings were most popular among the authors and editors as well. It was clear from this study that there was need to standardize and improve the formatting of structured abstracts. As far as the quality and accuracy of abstracts was concerned, it was beyond the scope of this study.

Keywords

Anatomy of Abstracts, Structured Abstracts, Original Articles