The Level of Adherence to Abstracting Standards (ISO 214) Obsereved in Persian Abstracts of General Medicine Theses in Arak University of Medical Sciences

Considering the necessity of uniformity and consistency in the structures of abstracts and also increasing their precision, correctness, and exhaustivity, this research aims to investigate the adherence to abstracting standards (ISO 214) in Persian abstracts of general medicine theses in Arak University of Medical Sciences during 1999–2008. This applied descriptive study reviewed all theses registered in the central library of Arak University of Medical Sciences and finally, selected 328 theses as the statistical population. In order to prepare the required standards and also to determine the consistency of the theses with abstracting standards, the original text of International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in abstracting and its translated Persian text were studied. A checklist designed based on ISO abstracting standards was used for data collection. The validity and reliability of the checklist were confirmed by the experts. Data analysis was performed in SPSS software. The results were shown as frequency, percentage and chi-square indices. The highest rate of adherence to including bibliographic information was seen in 2005 (48 abstracts (16.4%)). However, the findings and secondary results were not mentioned in any abstracts. The findings of chi-square test showed that except “purpose”, there was a significant difference in the adherence to the standards in different years. Adherence to form-related abstracting standards (ISO 214) e.g. research results, preserving the main information of the theses, etc. was acceptable. However, content abstracting standards including purpose, findings, etc. were not adequetly deployed.