Factors Affecting the Time to Publication in Ophthalmology Journals: A Comprehensive Bibliometric Analysis

There are currently no available aids for authors when selecting ophthalmology journals to submit their manuscripts. We aim to provide comprehensive data on the duration from submission to various stages of the publication process and assess factors influencing time to publication in ophthalmology journals.

A list of ophthalmology journals was obtained from the 2019 Web of Science Journal Citation Report. Journal characteristics, such as five-year impact factor, number of authors per article, journal type, and number of multi-institutional articles, were collected. The dates of submission, acceptance, electronic and print publication for all articles published in an ophthalmology journal in 2019 were determined.

In total, 56 journals and 8835 research articles were included. Of these articles, 3591 (40.6%) were open access and 4837 (54.7%) were multi-institutional. In 2019, most publications came from the United States of America (n = 1973), China (n = 1069) and Germany (n = 602). Significant associations were found between various predictors and a reduced mean number of days from submission to electronic publication: increased journal five-year impact factor (p = .026), more authors (p = .028), publishing in a hybrid journal (both open-access and subscription articles) versus an open-access journal (p = .021), and a reduced proportion of multi-institutional articles in a journal (p = .030).

There is a wide variation in the time to acceptance and publication in ophthalmology journals. Authors can expect a shorter time to publication when publishing in high-impact journals.