Peer-Review

Procedure for peer reviewing the manuscripts submitted for publication in the journal

All the manuscripts submitted for publication in the journal are peer reviewed by two independent experts who are non-members of the Editorial Board of the journal.

The journal provides peer reviewing of all the submitted materials that are within the remit of the journal for expert evaluation. All peer reviewers are the acknowledged experts who specialize in the field relevant to the reviewed materials and have had publications relevant to the topic of the article being reviewed over the past 3 years. The peer reviews are stored in the publishing and editorial office for 5 years.

The article is sent to reviewers without names or contact information of the authors (the so-called blind review).

Reviewers treat the article as confidential material and strictly follow the author’s right for non-disclosure of the data reported in the manuscript before the article is published. The reviewer may engage additional experts only with permission from the Editorial Board and on a confidential basis.

Reviewers’ comments are sent to the author without disclosing the reviewers’ identity. The Editorial Board makes a final decision whether to publish the manuscript or not after the peer reviews and authors’ answers were received. The Editorial Board sends copies of peer reviews or a substantiated rejection to the authors.

In some cases, the Editorial Board can send the article for an additional peer review, including statistical and methodological reviewing.

The Editorial Board constantly monitors the quality of peer review using the Russian version of the Review Quality Instrument questionnaire (Version 3.2), van Rooyen S., Black N., Godlee F. J Clin Epidemiol 1999;52:625-9.

The Russian version of the Review Quality Instrument questionnaire is available here (download - MS Word .docx).

The Editorial Board of the journal expects that the review process will help to:

prevent publishing poor-quality articles and reject the studies that have not been designed and conducted properly;
make sure that the data reported in the article are accurate, sufficient, and, where applicable, are presented in compliance with the current international standards CONSORT, STROBE, PRISMA, CARE, STARD (http://www.equator-network.org);
check whether the previous key studies in the corresponding field of science have been cited;
make sure that the authors have properly interpreted the data and drawn substantiated conclusions; and, hence:
make a decision whether to publish an article or not and offer suggestions to the authors on how to improve the article (where necessary).