Association between residents' scholarly activities and publication requirement policy

Background: Scholarship is recognized as important in residency training worldwide. The Japan Pediatric Society (JPS) enacted a reform in 2017 to require publication of an article as a prerequisite for taking the board certification test, with the goal of increasing scholarly activity. Methods: The purpose of this study was to provide a detailed description of the trends in residents' scholarly activities related to the JPS reform. A secondary analysis was performed on the cross-sectional database of pediatrics residents who took the certification test in 2015–2018. Results: The enrolled participants were 2399 residents of which 79.7% passed the test. Publication of any type of article increased significantly (21%–22% to 100%; 0.1 to 0.3/person-year) after the implementation of the JPS reform, whereas academic presentations did not (89% to 91%; 1.2 to 1.3/person-year), both in terms of the percentage of the number of those who created them and the average rate of research production. Not only Japanese articles (11%–13% to 49%–53%; 0.04 to 0.15–0.17/person-year) or case reports (10%–14% to 51%–52%; 0.03–0.05 to 0.16–0.17/person-year), but also English articles (4%–5% to 15%–16%; 0.01–0.02 to 0.05/person-year) and original articles (5% to 11%–17%; 0.01 to 0.03–0.05/person-year) increased significantly. The number of each type of article publication was correlated with success in the board certification test (odds ratio 1.5–1.8). Conclusions: Scholarly activities of pediatrics residents were enhanced by the JPS implementation of the article requirement policy, which is crucial to fostering a scholarly culture. The most efficient measures to promote scholarship need to be persistently investigated.