Publication of works presented in the 2016 and 2018 editions of the National Student Scientific Event on Internal Medicine-MEDINTÁVILA

Introduction: Much of the research works developed by students and presented in scientific events are not published in scientific journals. Objective: To characterize the research works presented in the 2016 and 2018 editions of the Evento Científico Estudiantil Nacional de Medicina Interna (National Student Scientific Event on Internal Medicine-(MEDINTÁVI-LA) and those published in scientific journals, as well as to identify factors associated with their publication. Materials and methods: Cross-sectional analytical study. A search strategy was carried out in April 2020 in Google Scholar in order to verify if the works presented in the 2016 y 2018 editions of the event had been published, in English or Spanish, in scientific journals. Bivariate analyses were performed to determine whether there were characteristics of the works associated with their publication, calculating prevalence ratios, along with their corresponding 95% confidence intervals and p-values and using generalized linear models (family=Poisson; link=log) in which each university submitting the research work was used as a cluster. A significance level of p<0.05 was considered. Results: Out of the 335 research works analyzed, 180 (53.73%) were presented at the 2016 edition. Regarding typology and the topics they addressed, 190 (56.72%) were classified under the free topics category, and 170 addressed chronic illnesses (50.75%). A total of 24 works were published (7.16%), of which only 9 were cited, and there were authoring changes in 19 (79.17%). No factors associated with the publication of the works were identified in the bivariate analysis. Conclusion: The publication in scientific journals of the research works presented in both editions of the event is very low, thus it is necessary for Cuban universities to provide medical science students with more research-related support, since this could increase the probability of publishing their works.