San Francisco Meeting Sets Attendance Record

The Bay Area last May set the stage for APA’s largest annual meeting ever, according to a report from APA’s Department of Continuing Medical Education (CME).

In fact, the 2003 APA annual meeting in San Francisco not only broke the record for general attendance, it also drew an unprecedented number of international members from every region of the globe.

Kathleen Debenham, director of APA’s CME department, prepared the report and presented it to APA’s Scientific Program Committee at its July meeting.

“Ninety-nine percent of respondents to the general evaluation believed the quality of the annual meeting sessions to be excellent,” the report pointed out, and the same percentage of respondents felt that the sessions met their educational objectives.

Total attendance at the meeting was 21,363, which beat the previous record attendance at the 2001 annual meeting in New Orleans by almost 1,500 attendees.

According to the report, “The strong attendance confirmed APA’s role as the provider of the premier international meeting for psychiatrists.” There were 6,570 international attendees at the meeting, who accounted for 39 percent of all registrants.

More than 350 reporters and other media representatives from around the world covered meeting sessions, according to the report, and news from the meeting landed on the pages of the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and Boston Globe.

Once exhibitors, staff, and media representatives were subtracted from the total attendance, data show that 16,879 attendees registered to attend the scientific sessions—the highest number on record.

Industry Symposia Monitored

APA continued to use a variety of strategies to expand its monitoring of industry-supported symposia (ISS) to ensure that the material presented was balanced and unbiased.

Since 1998 APA has used the ISS Resident Monitor Program for both the annual meeting and the Institute on Psychiatric Services, held in October each year.

Residents in psychiatry attend the ISS and, using guidelines developed by APA’s Department of CME and the Committee on Commercial Support, monitor the following: balance in each presentation, disclosure of conflict of interest by faculty, use of generic/brand names, disclosure of any discussion of unapproved or investigated uses, and any bias toward the supporting company’s products.

The results of the evaluation of those symposia indicated that APA’s oversight measures were effective, since overwhelming majorities of respondents (94 percent) agreed that “multiple viewpoints” and “an unbiased view of the topic” were presented in the sessions. In addition, 95 percent of respondents thought that the ISS would help them improve the effectiveness of their practices.

Who Attends the Annual Meeting?

Approximately 85 percent of the 5,282 annual meeting evaluation respondents identified themselves as psychiatrists, and 3 percent of those respondents (177) were residents.

Nonphysician health professionals made up a relatively small portion of the meeting registrants: 1.5 percent were psychologists, 1.4 percent nurses, and fewer than 1 percent were social workers.

Nearly 80 percent of evaluation respondents characterized their primary professional activity as patient care, followed by administration, teaching (6 percent each), and research (5 percent).

Respondents also were asked to identify their primary work setting, and the percentage of respondents indicating “solo or group private practice” was 31 percent. Other settings included university hospitals (16 percent); general hospitals (13 percent); psychiatric hospitals (12 percent); community mental health centers (9 percent); state/local facilities (6 percent); VA facilities (4 percent); and staff-model HMOs (1 percent).

The meeting’s 6,570 international attendees represented 85 countries. Canada had the highest number of registrants from outside the U.S., at 1,131. Some of the larger contingents came from the United Kingdom (539), France (430), Spain (387), Germany (270), the Netherlands (256), Denmark (221), Portugal (199), Switzerland (183), Italy (173), and Greece (118).

More Psychotherapy Wanted

The meeting participants were asked to include topics they would like to learn more about at subsequent annual meetings. They expressed interest in more sessions on psychotherapy of all types, alternative medicine, and neuroscience, for instance.

Complaints were few, though some respondents did include references to sessions with overflow attendance, incomplete and out-of-order handouts, and the reduced number of media sessions.

Annual meeting participants also expressed frustration with long lines for registration. In anticipation of another large meeting next year in New York, APA staff are assessing ways to streamline the registration process, particularly for APA members, according to Debenham.

The majority of the respondents gave the meeting high marks. As one registrant said, “It is an excellent scientific meeting, which inspired me [to be] a better psychiatrist and significantly enhanced my clinical knowledge. . . .”

The evaluation of the 2003 annual meeting was based on responses submitted on the General Evaluation Form, which was included with registration materials, distributed on site, and mailed to registrants after the meeting. The evaluation survey could also be completed at nine computer terminals in the APA Resource Center and at kiosks in the Exhibit Hall.

Next year’s meeting will be held May 1 to 6 in New York City. ▪