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Table 2 Undesirable experiences with biomedical journal peer review (all respondents, n = 1,340)

From: Views on the peer review system of biomedical journals: an online survey of academics from high-ranking universities

How frequent did each of the following situations happen to the respondents during journal peer review?*

Very rare/infrequent

Sometimes

Frequent/all the time

 

N (%)

N (%)

N (%)

The duration of review period is longer than 6 months.

815 (60.8)

374 (27.9)

151 (11.3)

The duration of review is longer than a year.

1231 (91.9)

88 (6.6)

21 (1.6)

Encountering personal attacks in reviewers’ comments.

1078 (80.4)

235 (17.5)

27 (2.0)

Breach of confidentially of articles’ information by reviewers.

1200 (89.6)

126 (9.4)

14 (1.0)

Unauthorised use of articles’ information (e.g. authors’ ideas, data or methods) by reviewers after rejection of articles.

1149 (85.7)

174 (13.0)

17 (1.3)

Imposition of unnecessary references by reviewers.

906 (67.6)

338 (25.2)

96 (7.2)

  1. Items are presented in the order of appearance in the questionnaire.
  2. Percentages sum to 100%.
  3. *Responses on a 5-point Likert Scale: 1, very rare; 2, infrequent; 3, sometimes; 4, frequent; 5, All the time.