Introduction: In the era of the new millennium, a lot of preclinical and clinical research is published. However, ethico-legal, cost-effectiveness and patient care issues are not addressed equally. Aim: To investigate whether abstracts presented at major international gastroenterology congresses refer to issues relevant to doctor-patient relationship, cost-effectiveness and care. Methods: We reviewed the abstracts on disk CD-ROMs of the United European Gastroenterology Week (UEGW) and the Digestive Disease Week (DDW), for the years 1998–2006. We used the following keywords: ethical/ethically, legal, consent, cost-effective/effectiveness, care, quality and tolerable/tolerability. Results: Over the study period, 1,612/20,018 (8.05%) and 764/45,628 (1.67%) abstracts including the above keywords were presented at UEGW and DDW congresses (p = 0.013), respectively. Statistically significant more abstracts containing separately any of the key words (apart from ‘legal’) were presented at the UEGW than at the DDW congress. There was a significant trend of increased referring to these key words over the study period for UEGW (p < 0.041) but not for DDW congresses (p = 0.70). Conclusion: The abstracts presented at the UEGW refer to ethico-legal, cost-effectiveness and patient care issues more frequently than those presented at the DDW. There is a trend of increased referring to these subjects at the UEGW but not at the DDW.

Keywords:
Ethics, Legal, Cost-effectiveness, Care
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© 2008 S. Karger AG, Basel
2007
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