Online survey of nursing journal peer reviewers: indicators of quality in manuscripts.

Nursing journal peer reviewers (N = 1,675) completed a 69-item online survey that assessed their views on manuscripts' contributions to nursing, priorities in writing reviews, use of journal impact factor, and other areas related to indicators of quality. They reported using contribution to knowledge or research evidence, topic of current interest, and newly emerging area as indicators of a manuscript's contribution to nursing. In writing their reviews, research rigor and clinical relevance of the manuscript were high priorities. Those familiar with the concept of impact factor were significantly more often not nurses; not United States residents; involved in research; and most often reviewed for journals that published only research or a scholarly mix of research, reviews, policy, and theory. When judging a paper's contribution, nursing journal peer reviewers weigh both research and clinical interests. Most reviewers do not use impact factors and place clinical considerations ahead of impact factors.

Ethical concerns of nursing reviewers: an international survey.

Editors of scientific literature rely heavily on peer reviewers to evaluate the integrity of research conduct and validity of findings in manuscript submissions. The purpose of this study was to describe the ethical concerns of reviewers of nursing journals. This descriptive cross-sectional study was an anonymous online survey. The findings reported here were part of a larger investigation of experiences of reviewers. Fifty-two editors of nursing journals (six outside the USA) agreed to invite their review panels to participate. A 69-item forced-choice and open-ended survey developed by the authors based on the literature was pilot tested with 18 reviewers before being entered into SurveyMonkey(TM). A total of 1675 reviewers responded with useable surveys. Six questions elicited responses about ethical issues, such as conflict of interest, protection of human research participants, plagiarism, duplicate publication, misrepresentation of data and 'other'. The reviewers indicated whether they had experienced such a concern and notified the editor, and how satisfied they were with the outcome. They provided specific examples. Approximately 20% of the reviewers had experienced various ethical dilemmas. Although the majority reported their concerns to the editor, not all did so, and not all were satisfied with the outcomes. The most commonly reported concern perceived was inadequate protection of human participants. The least common was plagiarism, but this was most often reported to the editor and least often led to a satisfactory outcome. Qualitative responses at the end of the survey indicate this lack of satisfaction was most commonly related to feedback provided on resolution by the editor. The findings from this study suggest several areas that editors should note, including follow up with reviewers when they identify ethical concerns about a manuscript.

Experience, time investment, and motivators of nursing journal peer reviewers.

PURPOSE: To describe nursing journal reviewers' professional backgrounds, reviewing experience, time investment, and perceptions of their role. DESIGN: Exploratory descriptive cross-sectional study. METHODS: A 69-question survey containing both fixed-option and open-ended questions and accessed via the World Wide Web was completed by 1,675 nursing journal reviewers who had been invited to participate by editors of 52 nursing journals. FINDINGS: Participants were from 44 countries, with 74% from the US, and 90% were nurses. The majority were doctorally prepared academics who were involved in research. They reported spending an average of 5 hours on each critique and completed an average of 7-8 reviews per year. The most common reason reported for becoming involved was personal contact with an editor. Lack of time because of competing work commitments was the most commonly cited barrier to reviewing and negative aspect of the role. The most common positive aspect was keeping up to date with the field. CONCLUSIONS: Nursing journal peer reviewers express rewards and challenges similar to those reported elsewhere for biomedical journal reviewers. Based on these findings, editors might consider new approaches to recruiting and supporting reviewers, and potential reviewers might gain insight into the role. Support of these distinguished scholars in this important role is critical to sustain the quality of scholarship that informs nursing practice, education, and research. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Clinicians, researchers, and educators who rely on the quality of the articles published in nursing journals can learn from this survey about the background and experiences of those who protect that quality by providing expert feedback to authors and editors.

Blinding in peer review: the preferences of reviewers for nursing journals.

AIM: This paper is a report of a study to assess the beliefs and preferences of reviewers for nursing journals about blinding of authors to reviewers, reviewers to authors, neither or both. BACKGROUND: Blinding of author and reviewer names in the manuscript review process has been of interest to nursing editors, but reports that are based on data rather than simply opinion concern the editorial practices of biomedical rather than nursing journals. There has been no study of nursing journal reviewer beliefs and preferences related to blinding. METHOD: A descriptive web-based survey was conducted. The sample included 1675 anonymous reviewers, recruited through 52 editors of nursing journals from their review panels. Data were collected in 2007. FINDINGS: Double-blinding of reviews was the most common method reported. Ninety per cent of respondents reported that the papers they received to review did not include author names. When author names were blinded, 62% of reviewers could not identify the authors of papers; another 17% could identify authors < or =10% of the time. Double-blinding was the method preferred by 93.6% of reviewers, although some identified some advantages to an unblinded open review process. CONCLUSION: Nursing journal reviewers are generally very satisfied with double-blinding and believe it contributes to the quality of papers published. Editors or editorial boards interested in a more open review process could consider alternatives such as offering authors and reviewers the option to unblind themselves. Simply announcing that the review process will henceforth be unblinded would probably lead to loss of reviewers.