James Crabtree, Chair of the BEVA Clinical Research Sub-Committee explains our new clinical descriptive abstract option and why this will be of interest to those working in clinical practice.
Congress attendees have always wanted to listen to research generated from clinical practice and BEVA would like to encourage practitioners to share this research at Congress. For 2024, the clinical research subcommittee in association with Equine Veterinary Journal have introduced a new abstract category, the Clinical Descriptive abstract (CDA)
The foundation of equine clinical research is the descriptive clinical report, be that a case report or a retrospective case series. Descriptive abstracts are intended to allow clinicians to report observations from clinical cases that shed light on possible harms, treatment outcomes, or approaches to diagnosis and therapy, that might be of interest to congress delegates.
The Abstract Guidelines provide guidance on the two submission options.
An important differentiation between the two submission types is word count, with the descriptive option allowing 500 words. The headings for the descriptive abstract aim to be more open and encourage description, allowing authors more freedom and perhaps reduce the perceived importance of trying to demonstrate or report something of statistical significance.
Another VERY important difference between abstract types is that for a descriptive abstract (and ONLY this route) authors can upload supplementary files for reviewer use and these might include:
- Figures or flow charts to support description of the case population or the clinical problem.
- Figures to support description of the intervention.
- Photographs/diagrams of the technique or approach being described.
- Figures or images to support clinical observations, diagnostic imaging or surgical findings and summary tables to support clinical observations.
In the abstract guidelines EVJ editor Celia Marr, has created two clinical descriptive abstract examples, demonstrating how one may present both a case report and a case series in the new descriptive format.
We are very much looking forward to receiving abstracts and hope you find the new format both welcoming and interesting to listen to at congress.