Peer Review Policy

1. Editorial screening before review

The editorial office first checks fit with the Aims and Scope, completeness of the submission, originality, ethical documentation, reporting quality, declared conflicts of interest, and basic methodological suitability. Similarity is screened with ORCA in line with the Similarity and Plagiarism Policy. Manuscripts that do not meet these requirements are returned or declined before external review, with reasons given to the corresponding author.

2. Criteria applied when inviting reviewers

Reviewers are invited against the criteria below. The editor verifies each criterion before the invitation is sent, and the supporting evidence is retained with the submission record.

• Subject expertise. Demonstrated expertise in the specific subject of the manuscript — not merely in anesthesiology in general.
• Academic standing. A doctoral or specialist qualification, or equivalent standing evidenced by a substantive research record in the field.
• Publication track record in the last three years. At least one article as first or corresponding author, or at least three articles as a contributing author, in journals indexed by an internationally recognised indexing body (Scopus, Web of Science, or PubMed/MEDLINE).
• Verifiable identity and affiliation. A current institutional affiliation and an active ORCID iD, both recorded in the reviewer’s OJS profile.
• Independence. No recent close collaboration, supervisory relationship, institutional conflict, financial interest, or personal relationship that could compromise objectivity. Reviewers are asked to decline where any such relationship exists.
• Diversity of origin. Reviewers for a single manuscript are drawn from different institutions, and ordinarily from more than one country. No reviewer is invited from the corresponding author’s own institution.

Authors may suggest or oppose reviewers with reasons, but the editor retains full discretion. Reviewers who have not completed a review in the preceding three years are retired from the active panel. The current panel is published in the Peer Reviewers directory, which is maintained separately from the Editorial Board.

3. What a review report must contain

JACR requires substantive assessment. A review report is expected to address, with specific reasons and reference to the manuscript:

• significance of the question and the originality of the contribution to the field;
• study design, setting, sampling, and whether the design can answer the stated objective;
• statistical or analytical methods, including handling of missing data, confounding, and uncertainty;
• presentation of results, and whether tables and figures are necessary, accurate, and self-explanatory;
• whether the interpretation and the conclusion are supported by the data presented, and whether limitations are stated honestly;
• ethical approval, informed consent, trial or protocol registration, and data availability;
• adherence to the applicable reporting guideline (CONSORT, STROBE, PRISMA, CARE, or another as relevant);
• currency, relevance, and sufficiency of the references.

A report confined to language, spelling, or layout is not accepted as a completed review: it is returned to the reviewer with a request for substantive assessment, or an additional reviewer is invited. Reviewers are asked to state a clear recommendation and to separate confidential comments to the editor from comments intended for the author.

4. Maintaining anonymity

Authors submit an anonymised manuscript file with all identifying information — author names, affiliations, acknowledgements, funding, and self-identifying citations — placed on a separate title page that is not sent to reviewers. The editorial office checks anonymisation before dispatch. Reviewer identities are not disclosed to authors, and author identities are not disclosed to reviewers, at any stage, including after publication, unless a reviewer explicitly asks to be identified and the editor agrees.

5. Review, disagreement, and editorial decision

1. At least three independent review reports are obtained for each externally reviewed scholarly manuscript.
2. Where reviewers reach materially different conclusions, the editor invites one or more further reviewers rather than averaging the recommendations.
3. The editor weighs the reports against the manuscript itself and the submission record. Decisions are not determined by a vote of reviewers, and editorial judgement is exercised independently of commercial considerations, author identity, institution, nationality, gender, beliefs, or political views.
4. Possible decisions are accept, minor revision, major revision, resubmit for review, or decline.
5. Revised manuscripts must be accompanied by a point-by-point response. Revisions are returned to the original reviewers where further assessment is needed.
6. The decision letter states the reasons for the decision and transmits the reviewers’ comments to the author.

6. Indicative timeline

The stages and target durations below are the same as those published on the Submission and Publication Process page.

These are typical targets, not guarantees. They may vary with the complexity of the manuscript, reviewer availability, author response time, and the number of revision rounds. Authors are kept informed of progress through their OJS account, and may contact the editorial office at any time for a status update.

7. Record of the review process

For every submission, the editorial management system retains the reviewer invitations and responses, the review reports and recommendations, the editorial decision letters, the author’s point-by-point responses, and the dates of each step. These records are preserved for the lifetime of the journal and are made available, under Editor credentials, to accreditation assessors and to any properly constituted investigation into the integrity of the published record.

8. Submissions by editors and other special cases

Submissions by editors, editorial board members, reviewers, or guest editors are assigned to an independent editor, and the contributor has no access to reviewer selection, the review reports, or the decision. Special-issue manuscripts follow the same standards and the same minimum of three reviewers. Case reports and case series are additionally assessed for written informed consent for publication, adequate anonymisation, a consent statement in the manuscript, clinical relevance, and reporting consistent with the CARE guideline.

9. Confidentiality, misconduct, and artificial intelligence

Manuscripts and review reports are confidential. Reviewers must not share or use unpublished material, must not retain copies after the review, and must not upload manuscripts, review reports, or any confidential editorial material to generative-AI services or other external platforms, as set out in the AI Tools Policy. Suspected misconduct, undisclosed conflicts, or peer-review manipulation should be reported confidentially to the editor and are handled under the Publication Ethics policy.

10. Appeals

Authors may submit a reasoned appeal identifying a material error in the review or in the decision. Disagreement alone is not a ground for appeal. Appeals are handled by an editor not materially involved in the original decision wherever feasible. See Complaints and Appeals.

This policy is applied together with the Publication Ethics, Similarity and Plagiarism, Publication Schedule, and Post-publication Discussion policies, and follows the COPE Core Practices and the COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers.