Are veterinary clinical manuscripts published more slowly than medical or scientific counterparts? A comparative observational study

ABSTRACT BACKGROUND Publication speeds of clinically relevant veterinary journals have not been evaluated. METHODS We compared 23 prominent veterinary journals to 11 comparable medical and 4 high-impact science journals and examined select factors that might affect these speeds. Submission date, acceptance date and first online publication date were recorded for 50 sequentially identified research articles from each journal that had been published immediately prior to April 26, 2018. Intervals from submission to acceptance, acceptance to publication, and submission to publication were calculated in days for each article. Data were compared visually across all journals, and statistically by field (veterinary, medical, high-impact), by impact factor and by publisher (commercial vs society) to identify trends or differences in publication intervals. RESULTS When assessed by field, intervals from submission to acceptance (p=0.18), acceptance to publication (p=0.75) and submission to publication (p=0.13) did not differ. Individual journals varied slightly in intervals from submission to acceptance, but varied markedly in intervals from acceptance to publication. Three journals had median intervals from acceptance to publication exceeding 135 days and two exceeding 500 days. Three journals had median intervals from submission to publication exceeding 550 days. Neither impact factor nor publication model affected any intervals. Intervals from submission to acceptance and acceptance to publication were positively associated with overall interval from submission to publication (rho=0.7, P<0.0001 for both associations). CONCLUSIONS Intervals from submission to acceptance for veterinary journals are like those for medical and high-impact journals, suggesting that the review process is similar across fields. However, several veterinary journals have intervals from acceptance to publication approaching 18 months.