The obstacles facing scientific and medical publishing in Saudi Arabia

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Medical and scientific publishing in Saudi Arabia has flourished in the last ten years. Such a form of publishing faces its own obstacles and the experience of the Annals of Saudi Medicine if analyzed can delineate such obstacles. The aim of this study is to identify the workflow obstacles facing the Annals of Saudi Medicine. METHODS: Root-cause analysis of the workflow process and output from submission till publication for the period January 2012–December 2013. Key performance indicators were developed and analyzed after being extracted from the online submission system. RESULTS: For the period of the study, 1058 manuscripts were received annually. These manuscripts originated in descending order from: Saudi Arabia 34%, Turkey 16%, India 12%, China 8% and Western Countries 3%. Categories of the submissions were: original articles 53%, case reports 31% and others 16%. Only 103 of the submissions were accepted annually for publication. Out of 7,709 requests to review a manuscript, only 1,579 (20%) resulted in a review. Out of a sample of 744 rated reviews, only 10% were poor in quality. The average turnaround time for review was 79 days. The main reason for the delay was the low response of the reviewers. CONCLUSION: The Annals of Saudi Medicine is a regional or continental journal with substantial submissions as case reports. This affected its Impact Factor and Hirsch Index. Moreover, the review process is delayed due to the poor response of the reviewers.