Trends in peer review metrics at the Annals of African Surgery (2017–2023): a retrospective study

Background: The peer review process is the cornerstone of scientific publishing act-ing as quality assurance mechanism. The process faces the challenges of recruitment of reviewers and assessment of the quality of the peer review proscess and quality of manuscripts. Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate trends in reviewer performance scores (R-scores), manuscript quality (M-scores), and their association with reviewer recommendations and editorial decisions at the Annals of African Surgery over a 7-year period. Methods: This is a retrospective cross-sectional audit of all peer review reports sub-mitted to the Annals of African Surgery between January 2017 and December 2023. Summary reports were generated from the online manuscript management system with the following variables: manuscript ID, submission year, manuscript revision cycle, reviewer ID, reviewer invitation response, reviewer recommendation, reviewer R-score, manuscript score (M-score), days from review assignment to completion, manuscript first decision, and manuscript final decision. Results: There was a low manuscript review acceptance rate of 29.9%. R-scores were generally stable with descriptively lower scores in later years with the longest median in 2023. There were no significant changes in M-scores while reviewer turnaround time varied significantly across years. There was a slight agreement between reviewer recommendations and editorial decisions. Conclusion: While reviewer acceptance rates improved significantly after 2019, there was no corresponding improvement in R-scores or M-scores. Future efforts should prioritize not only increasing reviewer participation but also strengthening the qual-ity and consistency of reviewer feedback to more effectively support manuscript development.