2017 Australian Pain Society 37th Annual Scientific MeetingExpanding Horizons9 - 12 April 2017 | Adelaide Convention Centre, South Australia

ABSTRACT SUBMISSIONS ARE CLOSED

The Scientific Program Committee (SPC) and the Local Organising Committee (LOC) invites the submission of abstracts on original work. Abstracts can be submitted for consideration for an oral or a poster presentation You will be asked to identify all co-authors, but the presenting author should submit the abstract. Presenting authors must be paid registrants at the Meeting. All abstracts must be submitted online via the Meeting website using the online submission form/portal.

Abstract Submission Key Dates

Instructions

• Only online abstracts will be accepted.
• Abstracts should be submitted using the abstract sample as a guide for layout. Click here to download the sample
• Abstract title should be in BLOCK CAPITALS
• Authors’ names should be on the next line
• Submitting author must be the person who will be presenting the paper at the conference, substitutes will not be accepted
• In case of more than one author please underline the name of the presenting author
• Do not include degrees or titles
• Authors’ organisations/institutions should appear on the next line and should include the suburb/city, state and country of the organisations/institutions
• Authors should note the word count at the end of the abstract
• Presenters will have a time slot of 10 minutes for their presentation, followed by 5 minutes for questions 

Guidelines

• Research shouldn’t already be published or have been presented at another conference
• If the abstract has been presented before, it needs to include some new and original elements 
• The data that will be presented at the meeting needs to be consistent with what was included in the submitted abstract. It is understood some progress may have been made between the abstract submission and presenting the content at the conference, however if the data is new or unrelated to the original abstract the SPC must be consulted prior to presentation

Abstract Body Format

• Must be 500 words or less, inclusive of title, author(s) names, and institutional affiliation(s) and references.
• Please do not use abbreviations unless defined in the abstract. 
• Care should be taken to ensure high quality English expression and grammar. 
• All submissions should be in Microsoft Word format.

Contents should include the following sections:

Background and Aims

Include one or two sentences to introduce the broad topic area and provide a reason for the study. Provide a clear statement of the aims of the study. A hypothesis could be included in this section

It may also be appropriate to add references to cited literature here. References will be included in the word limit. Authors are advised to keep references to a minimum, and to use an abbreviated referencing system, i.e. First author et al., no title, year of publication, abbreviated journal title, volume, pages. 

Methods

In this section information on participants (and /or subjects) should be provided. This may include the number of participants, demographic information such as age and gender as well as the method of recruitment. (ie a random sample or a convenient sample). Study inclusion and exclusion criteria should be included in this section as well as a sample size calculation if presenting a randomised clinical trial. Measures and procedures used in the study are described in this section. Descriptions of analyses appear in the methods section.

Results

The purpose of the result section is to provide a description of the main findings of the study. Reference to potential results that were unavailable at the time that the abstract was submitted will not be acceptable. Submitted abstracts must include actual results. Data from additional recruitment or updated analyses after abstract submission can be reported in the poster or oral presentation. Results should be expressed as means or medians and the spread of the results indicated as ranges, standard deviations or 95% confidence intervals as appropriate. Probability values must be included, but are not sufficient of themselves without descriptive statistics (means, etc).

Conclusions

In this section you should provide statements of interpretation and implication of findings, as well as comparison with previous literature. It should not be a simple restatement of the results.

There are some cases where this format requires modification, although authors should try as best as possible to adapt their abstract to fit within these 4 headings.

Narratives or theoretical discussions are usually not suitable for presentation as a poster or free paper given space and time constraints. Authors should consider submitting a topical session for consideration, if the proposed discourse would exceed the limits of a poster or free paper.

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All abstracts will be reviewed by the Scientific Program Committee (SPC) within six weeks of the closing date. 

Abstracts accepted for presentation may be published in the Journal of Anaesthesia and Intensive Care. The SPC must ensure a standard of abstracts that is compatible with publication. Some abstracts will need to be amended and you may be contacted by the Reviewer to discuss these changes. It is the intention of the SPC to use the amendment process to assist authors to improve their abstract writing skills. The Annual Scientific Meeting of the APS is an opportunity for new researchers to present their findings, and the SPC is eager to assist in the development of researchers investigating pain.

All presenters must register for a minimum of one day of the conference by the Early Bird Registration Deadline - Friday 24 February 2017, or the presentation will be withdrawn from the program. 
There is no funding or discounted registrations available for submitted abstracts. 

Rapid Communication Sessions

Poster presenters will be offered an opportunity to present their posters in a rapid communication session for one and half minutes each before lunch on Monday and Tuesday of the conference. Authors of accepted abstracts will receive information regarding the processes involved in a rapid communication prior to the meeting. Please indicate on your submission if you wish to be considered for the Rapid Communication Session.

The Australian Pain Society Prize for the Best Paper and the Best Poster

The prize for the best paper will be $2000 and for the best poster $500. Assessment will be based on content and presentation. The judges will be appointed by the Scientific Program Committee of the Australian Pain Society and their decision will be final. The awards will be presented at the Meeting.

EOI for Travel Grant Applications
Delegates wishing to apply for a travel grant must be the major contributor and submitting author of the abstract. Only delegates who have ticked 'yes' to the Travel Grant section of the abstract submission process and completed the associated application form will be considered. For further information and to ensure you meet the terms and conditions please click here.

For further information please contact the APS Conference Secretariat
:
DC Conferences Pty Ltd

P: 02 9954 4400

E: aps2017@dcconferences.com.au