Peer Review Policy

Annales Medicinae Urgentis is a peer-reviewed scientific journal dedicated to publishing high-quality scholarly work in emergency medicine and related fields. All manuscripts submitted to the journal undergo editorial assessment and, when suitable for further consideration, external peer review before a final editorial decision is made.

Type of peer review

Annales Medicinae Urgentis uses a double-anonymous peer review process. The identities of authors are concealed from reviewers, and the identities of reviewers are concealed from authors.

Authors are expected to prepare their manuscripts in a way that does not reveal their identity in the main manuscript file. Information that may identify the authors, including names, affiliations, acknowledgements, funding details, ethics approvals, and conflicts of interest, should be provided separately where required by the submission system.

Initial editorial assessment

All submitted manuscripts are first assessed by the Editor-in-Chief, Deputy Editor, or a designated Section Editor. At this stage, the manuscript is checked for:

• relevance to the journal’s scope;
• compliance with the journal’s author guidelines;
• originality and scientific or educational value;
• ethical approval and patient consent, where applicable;
• completeness of required declarations;
• potential plagiarism, duplicate publication, or other research integrity concerns;
• suitability for peer review.

Manuscripts that are outside the journal’s scope, do not meet basic scientific or editorial standards, lack essential ethical documentation, or are otherwise unsuitable may be rejected without external peer review.

Reviewer selection

Manuscripts selected for peer review are sent to at least two independent reviewers with appropriate expertise in the subject area, methodology, or clinical field of the manuscript.

Reviewers are selected by the editorial team based on their expertise, experience, independence, and absence of relevant conflicts of interest. Reviewers may be external experts or members of the Editorial Board, provided that they are independent from the authors and the submitted work.

The journal may invite additional reviewers when needed, including statistical, methodological, ethical, or subject-specific reviewers. If the initial reviews are substantially divergent, the editor may request an additional review before making a decision.

Conflicts of interest

Editors and reviewers must declare any potential conflict of interest before handling or reviewing a manuscript.

A conflict of interest may include, but is not limited to:

• recent or ongoing collaboration with the authors;
• employment at the same institution or department;
• personal, academic, or professional relationships that could influence judgment;
• financial interests related to the manuscript topic;
• direct competition or intellectual conflict;
• involvement in the preparation of the submitted manuscript.

Editors or reviewers with a relevant conflict of interest must recuse themselves from the review or decision-making process.

Confidentiality

All submitted manuscripts are confidential documents. Editors, reviewers, and editorial staff must not share, discuss, copy, or use unpublished manuscript material for personal, professional, or research purposes.

Reviewers must not disclose the content of the manuscript or their review to third parties without permission from the editorial office. If a reviewer wishes to consult a colleague or trainee, this must be approved by the editor in advance, and the additional person must also agree to confidentiality and conflict-of-interest requirements.

Reviewer responsibilities

Reviewers are expected to provide objective, constructive, respectful, and evidence-based feedback. Reviews should help editors make an informed decision and help authors improve the quality, clarity, and reliability of their work.

Reviewers are asked to evaluate, where applicable:

• originality and relevance of the manuscript;
• clarity of the research question or objective;
• appropriateness of study design and methodology;
• adequacy of statistical analysis;
• ethical conduct of the study;
• validity of results and conclusions;
• relevance and completeness of references;
• quality of presentation, structure, tables, and figures;
• clinical, scientific, educational, or public health importance.

Reviewers should identify major limitations, unsupported claims, ethical concerns, possible plagiarism, duplicate publication, data fabrication or falsification, image manipulation, undeclared conflicts of interest, or other integrity concerns if suspected.

Reviewers must not use confidential information obtained through peer review for personal advantage or to disadvantage others.

Use of artificial intelligence and automated tools in peer review

Reviewers and editors must not upload submitted manuscripts, figures, tables, supplementary materials, or unpublished data to publicly available generative artificial intelligence tools or other external automated platforms, as this may breach confidentiality.

Reviewers must not use generative artificial intelligence tools to generate peer review reports, editorial recommendations, or scientific judgments. Responsibility for the content, accuracy, tone, and conclusions of the review remains entirely with the reviewer.

Limited use of automated tools for language correction or formatting of the reviewer’s own text may be acceptable, provided that no confidential manuscript content is shared with external systems and that such use does not replace the reviewer’s own critical assessment.

Editorial decisions

After receiving reviewer reports, the handling editor evaluates the manuscript, reviewer comments, and any additional editorial considerations before making a recommendation or decision.

Possible editorial decisions include:

• accept;
• minor revision;
• major revision;
• reject and invite resubmission;

The final decision is made by the Editor-in-Chief, Deputy Editor, or designated handling editor. Editorial decisions are based on the manuscript’s scientific quality, originality, methodological soundness, ethical compliance, relevance to the journal, and the recommendations of reviewers.

The editor is not required to follow reviewer recommendations if there are justified editorial, ethical, methodological, or scientific reasons for a different decision.

Revisions

When revision is requested, authors should submit a revised manuscript together with a detailed response to reviewers. The response should address each reviewer and editorial comment point by point and clearly indicate changes made in the manuscript.

Revised manuscripts may be assessed by the handling editor alone or returned to the original reviewers or additional reviewers, depending on the extent of the revisions and the nature of the concerns raised.

Failure to adequately address reviewer or editorial comments may result in rejection.

Manuscripts submitted by editors or editorial board members

Manuscripts submitted by the Editor-in-Chief, editors, editorial board members, reviewers, or individuals closely associated with the journal are handled with additional safeguards to ensure editorial independence.

Such manuscripts are assigned to an independent editor who has no conflict of interest with the authors or the work. The submitting editor or editorial board member is excluded from all stages of editorial handling, reviewer selection, decision-making, and access to confidential review information related to the manuscript.

These manuscripts undergo the same double-anonymous peer review process as all other submissions.

Annales Medicinae Urgentis monitors the proportion of published research articles authored by editors, editorial board members, or reviewers and seeks to minimise editorial endogeny.

Special issues and supplements

Manuscripts submitted for special issues, thematic sections, conference supplements, or sponsored supplements are subject to the same editorial standards, ethical requirements, and peer review process as regular submissions.

Guest editors, if appointed, must follow the journal’s editorial and peer review policies. Final responsibility for editorial standards and publication decisions remains with the journal’s Editor-in-Chief or designated senior editor.

Supplementary material

Supplementary material that is essential for understanding, verifying, or reproducing the work may be included in the peer review process. Editors may request that reviewers assess supplementary files, datasets, images, checklists, or other supporting material when relevant.

Research integrity checks

Peer review does not replace editorial checks for research integrity. The journal may use plagiarism detection software, reference checks, image checks, statistical review, ethics documentation review, or other editorial procedures when appropriate.

If concerns arise before, during, or after peer review, the editorial team may request additional information, raw data, ethics documentation, patient consent forms, trial registration details, or institutional confirmation from the authors.

Appeals and complaints

Authors may appeal an editorial decision if they believe that a significant procedural error, factual misunderstanding, or conflict of interest affected the outcome.

Appeals must be submitted in writing to the editorial office and must include a clear explanation of the grounds for appeal. Appeals that simply disagree with reviewer or editorial judgment without new evidence will not usually be considered.

The journal will review appeals in a fair and timely manner. When appropriate, an independent editor or additional reviewer may be consulted. The decision after appeal is final.

Complaints about the peer review process, editorial conduct, reviewer conduct, or publication ethics should be submitted to the editorial office. The journal will investigate complaints according to principles of fairness, confidentiality, transparency, and publication ethics.

Post-publication issues

If significant errors, ethical concerns, or integrity issues are identified after publication, the journal may publish a correction, expression of concern, retraction, or other editorial notice, depending on the nature and severity of the issue.

The journal follows recognised standards of publication ethics when handling post-publication concerns.

Reviewer recognition

Reviewer identities are kept confidential unless explicit permission is given by the reviewer and the journal has approved disclosure. The journal may acknowledge the contribution of reviewers collectively, for example by publishing an annual list of reviewers, provided that this does not reveal the reviewers of individual manuscripts.

Editorial independence

Editorial decisions are made independently and are not influenced by the journal’s publisher, sponsors, advertisers, institutions, professional societies, or other external parties.

The acceptance or rejection of manuscripts is based solely on scholarly merit, ethical compliance, relevance to the journal, and the quality of the submitted work.

Last updated: 22.6.2026.