Introduction

Scientific research is an important cornerstone in academic training since it allows knowing health-compromising issues and identifying the solutions ¹. Students who research may be more qualified to face health system challenges and to make evidence-based decisions ². Publication is an important part of the research process ³, and despite schools of Medicine have set up basic research-related courses, the results are not necessarily published in indexed scientific journals ⁴.

Gouda et al. assessed medical students’ scientific output during 2013 at the top ten universities in the world, and found that 713 (10.10 %) of the publications were authored by a medical student at Harvard University,

330 (10.50 %) at Washington University, 360 (9.30 %) at Johns Hopkins University, 266 (12.50 %) at Standford University and 252 (11.50 %) at Pittsburgh University ⁵.

A study in Latin America assessed students’ scientific output in SciELO indexed journals, and found that 3.6 % of the original articles published in 2011 were authored by a medical student ⁶. In Peru, a study conducted at schools of Medicine in Lima revealed that one out of 40 students had published at least one original article in PubMed in 2016 ⁷. As to publications presented at scientific conferences, Urrunaga-Pastor et al. found that only 9.8 % of the research papers presented between 2002 and 2009 at national scientific conferences (NSCs) were published in indexed journals ⁷. This means that universities should promote educational quality, research as well as culture ⁹.

In 1992 Sociedad Científica Médico Estudiantil Peruana (Socimep - Peruvian Medical Student Scientific Society) was founded in our country. It brings together 40 medical student scientific societies from 37 schools in 18 departments of the country. Training courses, internships and NSCs are organized ever year, thereby seeking to promote research and to be the transformation axis of the Peruvian healthcare reality ¹⁰. Likewise, we can mention Federación Latinoamericana de Estudiantes de Medicina (Felsocem - Latin American Federation of Medicine Students), which is a non-profit organization engaged in promoting medical research on the health field from the undergraduate level ¹¹.

This objective of this study is to describe the characteristics of the papers presented at medical student conferences of Socimep between 2017 and 2019 as well as the factors related to their publication, considering that scientific societies should contribute to improve health and strengthen the publication of research papers ¹².

Materials and methods

Results

The study included 447 research papers presented at medical student national conferences between 2017 and 2019. The median of authors was 4 and the interquartile range 3-5, the minimum range being 1 and the maximum 20. There were 288 papers (64.40 %) with more than three authors. Concerning the sex of the lead author, females accounted for 198 (44.30 %) and males for 249 (55.70 %). A total of 233 (52.10 %) of the authors came from a university in Lima and 183 (40.90 %) were from public universities. Out of the presented papers, 376 (52.10 %) had an advisor among the authors, out of whom 332 (88.30 %) were physicians. Regarding institutional collaboration among authors, 378 (84.60 %) of the papers did not have any type of collaboration or the authors were from the same institution 32 (7.20 %) had national collaboration and 37 (8.30 %) international collaboration (Table 1).

Out of the papers presented, 51 (11.40 %) were published in scientific journals, of which 37 (72.60 %) were original articles and 11 (21.60 %,) case reports, among others. Moreover, most of the publications, i.e., 49 (96.10 %), were in Spanish. Out of the 51 publications, 34 (66.70 %) were published in Scopus indexed journals. As to the time until publication, the median and interquartile range were 313 [12-1,394] days (Table 2).

Variables such as type of university of the authors, participation of an advisor, type of paper presented and year of the conference in the bivariate analysis had a statistically significant relationship (p < 0.05) (Table 3).

The crude analysis revealed that the prevalence of publication of papers was 363 % higher when an advisor participated in research papers (aPR: 4.63; 95 % CI: 1.15-18.59, p = 0.031) compared to papers compared when they did not. Furthermore, the publication of research papers as original articles was 110 % higher (aPR: 2.10; 95 % CI: 1.11-3.94, p = 0.021) compared to case reports. On the other hand, the prevalence of publication for research projects was 76 % lower (aPR: 0.24; 95 % CI: 0.16-0.72, p = 0.011) compared to case reports. Moreover, the publication of research papers presented in 2018 was 70 % lower (aPR: 0.30; 95 % CI: 0.15-0.60, p = 0.001) compared to papers presented in 2017. It was statistically significant in these variables, with p < 0.05.

The adjusted analysis showed that the prevalence of research papers published as original articles was 131 % higher (aPR: 2.31; 95 % CI: 1.22-4.37, p = 0.010) compared to case reports and 63 % lower (aPR: 0.37; 95 % CI: 0.17-0.81, p = 0.014) for papers presented in 2019 compared to 2017, which was statistically significant with p < 0.05. Though the crude analysis revealed that the number of published papers that had an advisor were 363 % higher compared to papers with no advisor, there was no statistical significance in the multivariate analysis (aPR: 2.03; 95 % CI: 0.46-9.08, p = 0.351). (Table 4)

Discussion

Out of the 447 research papers presented at Socimep national conferences between 2017-2019, medical students published 51 papers (11.40 %). More than the half of the papers were published in Scopus indexed journals and were in Spanish. Most of them had a professional among the authors as an advisor. Out of 10 published articles, seven were an original article; and within this group, two out of every three papers had a cross-sectional design.

The percentage of publications was slightly higher than in the case of papers published at Socimep conferences from 2002 to 2009, which was 9.80 % out of a total of 532 abstracts of papers presented, according to a publication of 2012 ¹⁰ and another study published in 2017 that evaluated medical student international scientific conferences from 2011 to 2014, which stated that there were 83 publications (10.60 %), out of a total of 783 papers presented ¹³. It should be mentioned that this bibliometric study was conducted in a four-year period.

A high percentage of articles had a professional among the authors as an advisor; universities are probably allocating more resources and efforts to training in research and to require their teaching staff to become researchers qualified by Registro Nacional Científico, Tecnológico y de Innovación Tecnológica (Renacyt - National Scientific, Technological, and Innovation Registry) and to encourage students to publish from the undergraduate level ^17-19.

In addition, it was found that less than 63 % (aPR: 0.37; 95 % CI: 0.17-0.81, p = 0.014) of the papers presented in 2019 were published compared to 2017, which was statistically significant, with p < 0.05. This increasing trend of publications at the undergraduate level before the pandemic changed it in 2020. It could be undergoing a setback, which has affected papers not only at the undergraduate but also the graduate level ^18-20. The Socimep conference, which was usually held in person in any city of Peru, had to be changed to online mode, and journals prioritized papers related to COVID-19 in the first year of the pandemic. This scenario is expected to change to strengthen research from the undergraduate level ^23-25.

The prevalence of publication of research papers as original articles was 131 % higher (aPR: 2.31; 95 % CI: 1.224.37, p = 0.010). This could be explained by the fact that this type of papers, which were previously completed, are already original articles unlike research projects that have not yet been developed and might not be.

The research could not find a significant association between institutional collaboration and scientific publication. A previous similar study conducted in conferences from 2002 to 2009 did find an association between two or more authors from different universities that would increase the probability of publication. Cooperation among researchers from different institutions could improve knowledge sharing and enhance the quality of research papers, which would increase the possibility of publication in a journal by peers. In this regard, national and international associations such as Socimep and Felsocem have been working on scientific collaboration among medical students, e.g., conducting multicenter trials, which generates interest in conducting studies that evaluate collaboration networks among undergraduate health sciences students ^26,27.

One limitation should be noted in this research: it did not include a methodological evaluation of the full text of each paper and some published articles might have not been included in the search across different databases. At the time of the search, both the paper titles and the authors' names were included to prevent bias. Furthermore, it is possible that during the publication search, some papers under peer review or even had been accepted for future publication but were not yet available in journals.

We could mention as a strength that generating information on research studies and publications by students is important, as they are the seedbed of future researchers in our country. This indirectly measures the work of universities in providing scientific training.

In conclusion, the frequency of publications was 11.40 %, i.e., only one out of 10 abstracts of papers presented at Socimep conferences was published; however, this number is still low. Among the factors associated with the publication were presenting a research paper as an original article and in 2019. There were more frequent publications of research papers compared to case reports and research protocols.

It is important for university leadership in medical schools to create mechanisms that encourage and allow publication from the undergraduate level. It would improve the ranking tables of institutions that assess scientific output or licensing of medical schools ^14-16.

It is recommended that research projects be followed up as an opportunity to promote a culture of publication during the early stages of medical students’ professional training ^28-30.