Abstracts should be submitted using the abstract sample as a guide for layout. Click here to download the sample
Each abstract 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). Care should be taken that the statistical measures adopted are appropriate for the data sets being analyzed. For example, while comparing multiple groups or time points, application of a t-test is inappropriate. ANOVA and post-hoc tests that enable multiple comparisons (e.g. Bonferroni) should be used. The choice of one-way or two-way ANOVA is dependent upon the number of independent variables being tested. If the authors are unsure about which statistical measures to implement, receiving help from a statistician is recommended.
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.
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All experiments involving human subjects or the use of patient data for research purposes should be approved by a local Human Research Ethics Committee and should be in accordance with the Declaration of the World Medical Association (www.wma.net) and that any informed consent from human subjects was obtained as required.
All experiments involving animals should be approved by a local Animal Care and Ethics Committee and should be in accordance with the NHMRC Code of Practice and the Guidelines of the IASP. If guidelines are not available in the country where the research is being performed, practice must adhere to the principles of the above. The society expects the presentation of reliable and robust data.
Clinical Trials: Abstracts that meet the WHO definition of a clinical trial ie., any research study that prospectively assigns human participants or groups of humans to one or more health-related interventions to evaluate the effects on health outcomes. Interventions include but are not restricted to drugs, cells and other biological products, surgical procedures, radiologic procedures, devices, behavioral treatments, process-of-care changes, preventive care, etc.
Abstracts describing the results of clinical trials must adhere to the CONSORT reporting guidelines appropriate to their trial design, available on the CONSORT Statement web site [www.consort-statement.org]. Authors must provide the registry name and registry number in the methods section.