Call for Abstracts

WAIMH 2020 call for abstracts has now closed.

The WAIMH 2020 World Congress invites abstract submissions for oral, poster, Workshop and symposium presentations. Submissions are encouraged across a wide range of themes of relevance to Infant Mental Health and can be made via the Abstract Submission Portal above.

All abstracts must follow the instructions listed below and be submitted online by midnight AEST 7 October 2019, 11:59pm AEST (Brisbane, Queensland). Please note that the closing date for abstract submission will not be extended and abstracts will only be accepted if the presenting author has registered and paid by the presenter registration deadline of 16 March 2020, 11:59pm AEST.

All enquiries regarding abstracts for WAIMH 2020 Congress should be emailed to program@waimh2020.org

Abstract Submission Details

• Only abstracts submitted in English will be reviewed.
• A maximum of two (2) abstracts can be submitted per presenting author. Make note there is no limit for abstracts submitted as a co-author; only as PRESENTING author.
• Presenting author to be the first named author on the abstract.
• Notification will be emailed only to the presenting author.
• Abstracts must not exceed 300 words (excluding the title, authors and affiliations) and should follow the instructions within the abstract submission portal.
• Commercial presentations are not permitted.
• There is no fee for submitting an abstract.
• The submission category for the abstract must be selected at the time of submission.
• Within each category you can submit either a scientific or clinical abstract. Each abstract type has different structure requirements.
• Abstracts should not contain any tables or figures. References in the text have to be cited at the end of the abstract and are included in the 300 word count.
• The use of abbreviations and acronyms should be kept to a minimum.
• Abstracts must be submitted by midnight AEST, Monday 7 October 2019 for consideration by the Committee.
• For an abstract to be formally accepted, included in the program, and the abstracts supplement, the presenting author must be registered and paid to attend the Conference by 16 March 2020, 11:59pm AEST.

Abstract Type

Abstracts submitted as scientific abstracts should be organised under the following headings:

• INTRODUCTION
• AIM of the study
• MATERIAL and METHODs
• RESULTS
• CONCLUSIONS

Abstracts submitted as Clinical abstracts should be organised under the following headings;

• INTRODUCTION
• AIMS or PURPOSE of the project or work described
• DESCRIPTION of the work or project
• CONCLUSIONS

General Information

• Limited references should be used (e.g. Smith 1999) and only if necessary.
• Only those abstracts formally accepted will be published in the Congress Proceedings as submitted.
• Should you require changes you can make amendments via the Abstract Submission Portal until 7 October 2019. Please ensure you check your data carefully before submitting as changes or additions will not be accepted after the Call for Abstracts closes.

Abstract Review Panels

Authors will need to select up to two of the following review panel themes for their abstract submission depending on which is the most applicable.

1. Advocacy and infant mental health policy
2. Antenatal and perinatal practices
3. Attachment: research, security of attachment and disorders of attachment
4. Caregiving contexts
5. Cross cultural studies – Global strategies for infants, families and communities
6. Early development, child health and mental health
7. Evaluation and outcomes: scientific studies and early interventions
8. Infant mental health services, training, teaching, supervision and consultation
9. Observation and assessment: diagnosis, treatment and clinical issues
10. Parent-infant interaction and early relationship development
11. Parenting and family process
12. Prematurity and high-risk infants
13. Problems, symptoms and disorders of the infant
14. Problems with parenting and high risk families (e.g. adolescent parenting, parental substance abuse, family violence and child abuse)
15. Promotion and prevention in community context

Presentation Submission Categories

Abstracts may be submitted for one of the following presentation categories:

Brief Oral Presentation

Brief Oral Presentation (BOP) is an oral presentation lasting 10 minutes. There will be 90 minute BOP sessions consisting of 6-8 individual presentations. A BOP can be a presentation of a new research finding or a concise presentation of a clinical case or problem. There are two ways of submitting a BOP session. You can organize a whole BOP session with 6-8 presenters, or you can submit an individual BOP. The Programme Committee will organize individual BOP presentations to BOP sessions.

Poster Presentation

Poster presentations are best suited to reporting of results from a single empirical investigation or presentations of a clinical, educational, training, evaluation, or intervention program. Posters are displayed for half a day. The author(s) must be present at the poster at a scheduled two-hour period in order to discuss the poster with participants.

According to the customs of most international congresses, posters will play a central role at the WAIMH congress and will be the most interactive type of presentation. All posters will be placed at a highly visible location, which is conveniently located within the congress centre. The size of your poster should not exceed A0 size (841mm x 1189mm) portrait orientation. Materials to fix the posters on the poster boards will be provided.

Poster workshop

Poster Workshops consist of regular posters that are organized around specific themes. Poster workshops can contain eight to ten posters. Poster workshops are assembled in one of two ways:

1. A group of investigations from diverse laboratories/ clinics/countries can propose a thematic poster workshop. All poster workshop primary authors should submit their own abstract and indicate the title of the poster workshop.
2. The Program Committee may assemble a group of abstracts that share a common theme and assign them to a separate poster workshop. In this case, the moderator for the poster workshop session will be selected by the Program Committee.

Workshop

Workshops are optimal for exchanging information about a particular body of knowledge, clinical treatment, teaching technique, assessment or research instrument, or methodology. A workshop should include a small number of presenters (generally no more than two or three) and the emphasis should be on disseminating specific knowledge. Because workshops are tutorial in nature, active discussion between audience and presenters should take place throughout the session. Workshops are scheduled for 60 minutes.

Symposium

Symposia are scheduled for 90 minutes, including 3-5 oral presentations on a related topic (clinical issue, research finding, policy issue) and time for active discussion with the audience. Symposia that feature active panel debate about a topic, or present various perspectives about a topic, are preferred to those in which speakers all report from the same perspective. It is important to recognize the interdisciplinary and international nature of WAIMH when organizing a symposium. Preference will also be given to symposia that report longitudinal outcomes of 0-3 clinical and scientific studies.

Submissions for Symposia will be a two-part process.

Part 1: Overall abstract with description of symposia content, title of Symposia and list of suggested speakers is required to be submitted by the Symposium organiser during the first abstract call with deadline 7 October 2019, 11:59pm AEST.

Part 2: Following the submission of the main Symposia abstract, the Symposium Organiser is required to submit the abstracts individually for each presentation within the Symposia. At the top of each individual abstract, the symposium organiser needs to list the name of the Symposia the abstract relates to. All individual symposia presenter abstracts need to be submitted by the deadline of 7 October 2019, 11:59pm AEST.

Video presentation

Video presentations are used to demonstrate or teach about new clinical or research evaluation and treatment tools and methods. These presentations run once during the time of parallel sessions, and are restricted to 45 minutes. Presenters must be available at the scheduled time.

Video presentation abstracts must be submitted via the online submission portal by deadline of 7 October 2019, 11:59pm AEST. The video presentation abstract should be no longer than the 300 word limit.

Terms and Conditions

Whilst every effort will be made to accept an abstract for the presentation type selected in the submission process, the Committee reserves the right to allocate a different presentation type if more appropriate and if program space is limited.

The submission of an abstract indicates an understanding of the following rules for participation in WAIMH 2020 Congress:

• All author(s) approve submitting this work for presentation.
• The author(s) transfer(s) all copyright ownership of the named abstract to WAIMH 2020.
• The author(s) agree(s) to materially confine their presentations to information in the abstract if accepted for presentation. If an author has more than one abstract accepted, each presentation will be materially confined to the information in the abstract selected for the specific session.
• The presenting author will be available to present the abstract if selected for the program. The presenting author will immediately notify the Congress Secretariat if they are unable to present an abstract or if the presenting author changes.
• Submission of the contact details provided are those of the presenter of the abstract. He/she will be notified about the status of the abstract and is responsible for informing the other authors about the status of the abstract.
• Submission of the abstract constitutes consent of all authors of the abstract to publication (e.g, WAIMH 2020 website, programs, and other promotions).
• All authors of the abstract warrant and represent that they either are the sole owners of, or have all necessary rights to, sublicense all the information and content in the abstract provided to WAIMH and its organizers, and that publication of the abstract does not infringe any rights, including but not limited to, intellectual property rights, or of any third parties.
• WAIMH 2020 reserves the right to remove from any publication any abstract that does not comply with the above.