the medical council of india ( mci ) requires publications as a desirable qualification for promotions among faculty members .
publication race. an author 's quest for publication usually ends with a letter from the editor stating  i am pleased to inform you that your manuscript is acceptable for publication. this quest involves many hurdles , many of which may cause stress to authors and editorial teams . a healthy attitude toward publications and an improvement in publication related policies is the need of the hour . with this background in mind
, we conducted a nationwide cross - sectional study among faculty members and consultants , predominantly anaesthesiologists , with an aim to explore their views , attitude and practice related to various issues on  publications.
we designed the questionnaire which consisted of 22 carefully selected questions divided into four parts [ table 1 ] .
the questions were based on demographics , respondents ' publication background , publication related views and practice .
the survey questionnaire we conducted a pilot study in our department using the same questionnaire with a target size of 20 .
several shortcomings in the questionnaire were revealed , and necessary changes were incorporated into the final questionnaire . based on the pilot study and considering the publishing burden as 57.2% , the proportion worked out to be 588 at 95% confidence intervals and an absolute precision of 4% .
the questionnaire was designed in printed and electronic versions . with permission from our institutional ethical committee ,
the printed questionnaire was distributed during an anaesthesia state conference and in the departments of some medical colleges in our state to around 270 faculty members and consultants .
the e - version was designed by kwiksurveys.com , a free to use online survey , builder .
we also sent e - mail requests to participate in this survey addressed to 18,000 faculty members and consultants by name .
our survey queried the respondents about various publication related issues using questions with either positive or negative answers and questions with answers on a five point likert scale running from  strongly disagree to strongly agree. the participants completed the questionnaire unmonitored .
we sent e - mail reminders to those members who did not respond within 15 days of receiving the electronic questionnaire .
faculty as a teacher in a medical educational institution having an academic rank starting from assistant professor up to professor and a  medical consultant in a non - teaching hospital to be a doctor of senior rank within a specific field .
we included the senior residents in medical colleges in the faculty group in our study for the sake of convenience .
out of the 18,270 faculty members and consultants contacted , 600 participants ( 3.28% ) responded to our questionnaire .
twenty - six questionnaire forms were returned incomplete and were not considered for further analysis .
demographic characteristics of the respondents about 41% had never attended any workshop on scientific writing . it was found that 53.1% of our respondents 
read , 32.8%  sometimes read and 14.1%  never read more than one journal on a regular basis .
around 60% of our respondents had publications to their credit and 40% did not have any .
the responses to the questions related to views on publication were quite interesting [ table 3 ] .
publication views related questions with positive / negative answer a total of 42.1% of respondents thought that the rule of mandatory publications was the reason for the origin of several non - indexed journals .
clinical investigations were rated as most significant academically by our respondents ( 56.4% ) followed by review articles ( 22% ) , case reports ( 21% ) and editorials ( 0.6% ) .
however , 47% respondents liked to read most of the review articles ; 40% , 8% and 5% liked to read clinical investigations , case reports and editorials respectively . regarding the period after article submission
, we found that 34.6% respondents check their e - mail every day for an editorial response , 26.6% forget about it for the next several months and 38.8% keep sending reminders to the editor enquiring about their article status . in case of a submitted article getting rejected
, majority of our respondents ( 76.5% ) would like to find out the fallacies of their article and try to improve on it , 8.5% would react via e - mail or telephone to the editor of the journal , 13.9% would immediately submit it to another journal and 1% would blame the editorial team .
a total of 35% respondents felt dejected whereas 29% felt that the editorial team was just trying to delay the publication process .
our queries related to other publication related author views and practice received interesting answers [ tables 4 and 5 , figure 1 ] .
the responses obtained for some questions on publication related author views the responses obtained for some questions on publication related author practice respondents ' view regarding role of publications in academics
almost 40.4% of our survey participants did not have publications to their credit thus showing the current trend of medical scientific writing in india .
the real contribution to the world literature from developing nations is minimal across all disciplines in general and anaesthesiology in particular .
our study population included consultants ( 30.8% ) ; consultants and clinicians may not be able to devote much time to write manuscripts .
they may only be able to conduct the study and make an outline of the paper ready .
a report states that india ranks ninth in the world with respect to scientific publications .
this depicts the scientific reading habits of our faculty members and consultants . though our respondents know that clinical investigations are academically more important , they prefer to read review articles . as howie said 
not all who look at a journal are going to read even one article in it .
writers must know therefore , what turns a looker into a reader. our study results depict clearly some interesting publication related views .
eighty one percent of our respondents felt that online / e versions of journals are better read whereas 14% felt that print versions are better read .
the major benefits of e - journals are ease of access , saving storage space , increased speed of communication and availability of multimedia information including the ability to hyperlink references . in this era of google search ,
publicly accessible peer reviewed non - indexed articles are accessed more by faculty in resource poor countries since they need not pay for reading the full article .
inaccessibility due to lack of online access to the journal , non - archiving , power failures and health problems such as backache and visual problems due to prolonged reading on screens , higher cost , complexities for acquisition , requirement to log on , frustrating interfaces and need for maintenance by expert staff , are some disadvantages of e - journals .
though the impact factor may be a valid indicator of quality and prestige for medical journals , it has its shortcomings .
other approaches to evaluate the prestige of a journal include - asking colleagues for their opinions , relying on published articles that rank journals using various methods and relying on departmental ranking list of journals .
total of 42% of our respondents agreed with the fact that publications are a question of pride for an academician .
the teachers who have publications have definitely an edge over their rivals for promotions . for junior consultants and younger faculty , publications in reputed international journals are a great help when applying for positions and fellowships in foreign institutions .
majority of our survey respondents ( 65% ) felt that the peer review process makes an article more useful and of better quality and 16% felt that it was just a means of prolonging the publication or rejecting the article ; nevertheless , in an international survey to a question on whether peer review works , 90% respondents said that peer review was mainly effective in improving the quality of publications and 38% were dissatisfied with the peer review times . according to some authors , the mci rule of mandatory publications has led to madness to get articles published and this rule has encouraged unethical publication practices such as plagiarism . this is what many respondents to our survey ( 32% ) also felt .
this brings to light the fact that  fraud in science has often been explained as reflecting the misdirected activities of an individual suffering from excessive stress - perhaps a post - doctoral fellow who is anxious to ensure a successful career progression. nonetheless , 27% of our respondents felt that publications are a mandatory stress and 57.3% felt that the mandatory number of publications induces unhealthy competition .
the lack of research experience among indian medical academics , coupled with the pressure to  publish or perish provides an optimum environment for predatory publishers to flourish .
this is exactly what our survey revealed ; 42.1% of our respondents thought that the rule of mandatory publications was the reason for the origin of several non - indexed journals .
eighty nine percent of our survey respondents considered journal indexing as an important consideration while choosing a journal for article submission whereas 87% considered review / publication time as most important criteria .
this shows that in india , publications in indexed journals are highly valued . regarding the question of choosing a journal for article submission
, some researchers have developed comprehensive models to guide both new and experienced researchers.  . witt noted :  to me , the most important factors impacting publication preferences are based on who will be able to read the published paper , how available is each journal and what journal databases abstract each journal. klinger et al .
recommend the authors to seek information about review cycle time and publication time for each journal before submission .
delays in article publication can slow the dissemination of scholarship and can provide a significant burden on the academic career of authors . in a web - based survey ,
the quality of the journal and the speed of the review / publication process were the two factors rated highly across in the authors ' decision to publish in mega journals ( open access journals with broad scopes , a review process focusing exclusively on sound methodology and an accelerated publication process ) .
a majority of our survey respondents ( 77% ) did not feel offended and had the feeling that they should try to improve their manuscripts when a submitted manuscript came back repeatedly to them as authors for author corrections . nevertheless , revision is , with rare exceptions , an inescapable cross road on the path to publications .
a total of 76.5% of our respondents said that after rejection they would try to find out the fallacies of the article and improve .
desk rejections are generally often related to the scope of the paper , poor quality writing , poor research design , etc .
most of the times , the articles written by indian researchers are deficient in grammatically correct language and adequate references in support of their statements . also , the common deficits found are due to poorly planned , conducted and presented research .
institutes should make the attendance of workshops on scientific writing mandatory for their staff and students .
more frequent workshops on scientific publications need to be held . to promote high quality publications ,
indian society of anaesthesiologists workshop module which can be used across india . as expressed by a majority of our survey respondents ,
a taste toward research publications should be inculcated in the post - graduate ( pg ) teaching curriculum itself . as rightly said by some authors , including publication training in the pg curriculum can improve the medical literature appraisal skills of pgs and thus contribute to the overall publications from the institute .
our survey response for the question on user preferences for online or print journals shows that e - journals have become an important means of scholarly information management .
we recommend that e - journals should be made available to those without such access .
our survey depicts the way authors choose journals for publication , their mentality in relation to the submission - revision - acceptance - rejection - publication cycle and how they view elements like impact factors .
these findings give a message for journals to speed up their review / publication processes and to improve their impact factors because authors seem to select journals based on these points . in this context
, it would be worthwhile to mention that several editors have constantly endeavoured to make indian journals like the indian journal of anaesthesia as the most cited journals .
our survey response rate was less , in spite of us trying measures to improve the response .
this may be because of the fact that ours ' was mainly an online survey .
online surveys usually achieve less response rates compared to face - to - face paper based surveys .
this was because of limitations in the length of our survey . since ours ' was mainly an electronic survey , it is possible that computer literacy and accessibility could have affected the respondents ' choice for e - journals and electronic submission of manuscripts .
also , the majority of our survey participants were from karnataka and maharashtra though we sent the questionnaire to all parts of the country .
the survey attempts to analyse the current trends in publication behaviour of mainly indian anaesthesiologists .
publish ) , pg curriculum planners , conference organisers , library decision makers , journal editors and publishers .
our study suggests that sincere efforts are needed to improve the publication system in order to make it less stressful with a stronger scientific output .
 background and aims : there is an increasing enthusiasm and pressure to submit scientific articles to journals for publication due to official policies . 
 this has led to increased stress on authors and editors and in issues like plagiarism . 
 we planned a cross - sectional study with an aim to explore the current publication related views and practice of faculty members and consultants.methods:we conducted a questionnaire based prospective survey with 22 questions divided into parts . 
 print and electronic versions were sent to around 18,270 members in total , a majority of whom were anaesthesiologists and 600 members responded to our questionnaire . a database was created and analysed using microsoft excel.results:about 80% felt that online journals were better read than print journals . 
 eighty eight percent agreed that publications improve academic skills . 
 the medical council of india requirements to publish in reputed journals were cited as the main reasons for plagiarism . 
 the publication rule had become a burden for 46% respondents . 
 review articles were most likely to be read though clinical investigations were considered to be of maximum academic significance . 
 review / publishing time followed by author requirements and journal indexing were the points our respondents liked to see most when choosing a journal for article submission.conclusion:our survey results depict the current author related views and trends in publication practice which may guide in evidence - based policy making . 
INTRODUCTION
METHODS
RESULTS
DISCUSSION
CONCLUSION
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Conflicts of interest