Publishing during a Pandemic: Analyzing Recent Publication Times in Hand Surgery

Timely distribution of research is crucial for improving treatments and patient care; however, the publication process is historically unhurried. The primary goal of this study was to analyze the time to publication in hand surgery for 5 years and to examine potential factors affecting publication speed. A 5-year review (2017-2021) was performed on 4 major hand surgery journals. The , , , and were included in the review. Differences were assessed using analysis of variance or 2-sided independent tests for continuous variables. There was a significant difference in submission-to-publication time between journals ( < 0.001). This differed by year ( < 0.001), with a significant increase in time from submission to publication after 2019, during the COVID-19 pandemic (447 ± 198 versus 406 ± 169 d, < 0.001). Geographic region of the primary institution did affect submission-to-publication time ( < 0.001). No significant difference was seen in submission-to-publication time based on the number of institutions contributing, article type, or first author or corresponding author surgical specialty ( > 0.05). Time to publication in hand surgery varies by hand surgery journal and significantly increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. New research reflects work done over a year ago at least. Participation in the peer-review process should be encouraged and bolstered within the hand surgery community to improve research dissemination times within the field.