Analysis of case reports submitted to the European Annals of Otorhinolaryngology Head & Neck Diseases

Keys for successful publication in Eur Ann Otorhinolaryngol Head Neck Dis: A STROBE analysis of peer reviews of articles submitted in 2020-2021

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate reviewing and editorial decision for articles submitted to the European Annals of Otorhinolaryngology Head & Neck Diseases.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

A retrospective analysis was made of reviewers' comments on 1,133 scientific articles (700 original articles, 96 literature reviews, and 337 case reports), originating from 69 countries, consecutively submitted on-line between January 1st, 2020 and December 31st, 2021. The main objective was to document the acceptance rate and decision time. Accessory objectives were to synthesize the main comments and to screen for correlations between acceptance and the main characteristics of first authors, articles and reviewers' comments.

RESULTS

In total, 4.1% of submitted articles were accepted. Median decision time differed significantly (P<0.0001), at 1 month in case of refusal and 4 months in case of acceptance. Reviewers mentioned failure to adhere to the journal's authors' guide, to use the appropriate EQUATOR guidelines and to adopt the recommended P<0.005 significance threshold in 94.8%, 54.2%, and 39.9% of cases, respectively. On multivariate analysis, 3 variables significantly impacted acceptance, which increased from 1.3% to 44.6% (P<0.0001) when an appropriate EQUATOR guideline was used and from 0.3% to 57.4% (P<0.0001) when the significance threshold was set at P<0.005, and decreased from 10.5% to 1.1% (P=0.0001) when the article did not originate from a French-speaking country (member of the Francophonie organization).

CONCLUSION

Adhesion to modern scientific medical writing rules increased acceptance rates for articles in the European Annals of Otorhinolaryngology Head & Neck Diseases. Teaching modern scientific medical writing needs to be enhanced in otorhinolaryngology.

The Bibliometric Aspects of Case Report/Series in Science Citation Index Otorhinolaryngology Journals

Objective:

The rate of case report/series (CR/S) acceptance by the high impact journals is steadily declining mainly due to low citations. The aim of this study is primarily to investigate the bibliometric aspects of CR/S in the field of otorhinolaryngology (ORL) and secondarily to guide prospective authors as to which type of CR/S have better chances of acceptance and citation in the current publication climate.

Methods:

Bibliometric and citation analysis of CR/S published in Science Citation Index (SCI) journals of ORL covering the years of 2012-2016 was conducted.

Results:

There were 1332 (8.9%) CR/S among 14900 publications in 11 SCI ORL journals published between January 1^st, 2012 and December 31st, 2016. The most common published field and subject were the ‘pediatric ORL’ (33.2%) and ‘rare cases/conditions’ (47.1%) respectively. ‘General ORL’ (5.13) and ‘treatment’ (4.93) categories had the highest citations. Only 10% of CR/S had ≥10 citations. The mean citation counts were positively correlated with impact factors of journals (r=0.131, p<0.001), mean number of authors (r=0.151, p<0.001), mean number of cases (r=0.192, p<0.001), mean number of references (r=0.315, p<0.001) and mean number of Web of Science visits (r=0.291, p<0.001).

Conclusion:

Although CR/S provides low citation rates in ORL SCI journals, they may serve important topics in terms of diagnosis, treatment, or complications. The findings and the main discussions of this study may direct the rationale for the consistent publication of CR/S in the evidence-based medicine era.