The mysterious case of the disappearing pilot study: a review of publication bias in preliminary behavioral interventions presented at health behavior conferences

Table 3 Summary of abstract characteristics with percentage of abstracts (n = 791) paired to full-length, peer-reviewed articles^a

	Abstracts	Published
	n	n (%)
Methodology
Quantitative	578	283 (49%)
Mixed	167	90 (54%)
Qualitative	28	9 (32%)
Unspecified	18	6 (33%)
Affiliation of authors’ institution^b
Government	25	8 (68%)
Independent	22	7 (68%)
Medical	30	12 (60%)
University	407	197 (52%)
Country of authors’ institution^c
High income	776	384 (49%)
Upper middle income	11	2 (18%)
High & upper middle income	2	1 (50%)
Lower middle income	1	0 (0%)
High & low income	1	0 (0%)
Participant demographic^d
Adult	280	147 (53%)
Unspecified	212	101 (48%)
Older adult	83	46 (55%)
Children	80	41 (51%)
Adolescence	59	26 (44%)
Young adult	35	10 (29%)
Family	19	4 (21%)
Couple or dyad	12	5 (42%)
Site	6	4 (67%)
Infant	5	4 (80%)

^aPercentages may not add to 100% due to rounding
^bAvailable only for abstracts presented at the Society of Behavioral Medicine (n = 484)
^cCategories determined using the World Bank country classifications for the 2023 fiscal year. Multiple classifications are listed where abstract authors were from more than one classification
^dDemographics were specified by abstracts. Abstracts not specifying a target population were coded as “unspecified”

ISSN: 2055-5784