With the dissemination of the infographic shown in Fig. 1 in social networks in the past year, we have encouraged potential authors to submit a manuscript to Anales de Pediatría. The Editorial Committee gives 5 reasons justifying this appeal: Anales is a gold open access journal that does not demand processing fees from authors, handles manuscripts within acceptable time frames and makes editorial decisions supported by blind peer review, accepts and publishes articles in Spanish and English and is positioned in the third quartile of its category, it has an excellent visibility through its website, Science Direct and the social media accounts of the Asociación Española de Pediatría (AEP, Spanish Association of Pediatrics) and it contributes to the diffusion of science in Spanish. Our goal is to bring the journal to the awareness all authors, scientists and researchers who generate new knowledge in the field of paediatrics with the ultimate objective of continuing to improve the quality of Anales de Pediatría.

Figure 1.

Five reasons to publish in Anales de Pediatría.

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In year 2023, we observed an increasing trend in the number of submitted manuscripts to up to 682, as can be seen in Fig. 2. The distribution by type of manuscript was similar to that of recent years, with a slight increase in the publication of scientific letters and images (Fig. 3). Although the rejection rate for original articles remains at 80%, the overall acceptance rate has increased on account of a greater percentage of acceptance for scientific letters and, above all, images and videos. We ought to mention that the video format available in the latter section is a very attractive resource that suits the emerging media consumption habits of the readership, and that the publication of videos has doubled in 2023.

Figure 2.

Annual changes in the total number of received and accepted manuscripts in years 2014 to 2023.

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Figure 3.

Annual changes in the percentage of original articles, scientific letters and letters to the editor received in the 2014–2023 period.

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The dynamic management approach has succeeded in reducing processing times considerably, especially the time elapsed from acceptance of a manuscript to its online publication and its assignation to an issue—5 and 16 weeks, respectively, as can be seen in Fig. 4. Regrettably, the time to first response has increased to 13 days (Fig. 5) on account of the difficulties experienced in finding expert reviewers willing to accept the invitation for peer review. We have launched strategies to improve on this aspect.

Figure 4.

Mean manuscript processing time from acceptance to publication (2014-2023).

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Figure 5.

Mean time elapsed from reception to first response by the Editorial Committee (años 2014–2023).

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Anales de Pediatría publishes the English translation of manuscripts accepted in Spanish simultaneously. This process was finally consolidated for every section of the journal in 2023. The journal also undertook the translation and online publication of the Letters to the Editor and Images in Paediatrics sections for years 2021, 2022 and 2023, which were not previously available in English, to increase their diffusion and allow their indexation.

Anales de Pediatría is succeeding in its mission to disseminate scientific output in paediatrics supported by its excellent visibility. The total number of visits continues to grow by more than 1 million a year, exceeding 11 million in 2023. This increasing trend has been observed in the visits through both the journal website and Science Direct (Figs. 6 and 7).

Figure 6.

Visibility of Anales de Pediatría: total number of visits (2014-2023).

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Figure 7.

Visibility of Anales de Pediatría: Number of visits to the site (www.analesdepediatria.org) (2014–2023). The percentage distribution by country was: Spain: 24%, Mexico: 23%, Argentina: 9%, Colombia: 8%, Peru: 7%, Chile: 6%, Ecuador: 4%, Venezuela: 3%, United States: 2%, Bolivia: 2%, other: 12%.

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The most read article in 2023, with 35 250 visits, was “Actualización del documento de consenso sobre etiología, diagnóstico y tratamiento de la otitis media aguda y sinusitis”, written by the Collaborative Group for the Consensus on Acute Otitis Media and Sinusitis in Paediatrics.1

We continued our activity through the social media accounts of the AEP with the daily posting of articles in X (formerly known as Twitter) and monthly posting of the contents of each issue of the journal. In the case of original articles, the graphical abstract is included in the tweet. The publication with the greatest impact within social networks was the “Documento de consenso sobre nutrición en las cardiopatías congénitas”, a consensus document developed by the AEP published in May 2023 with 6.36 K views.2 We encourage paediatricians and readers to promote the diffusion of the contents of the journal in social networks to encourage scientific debate.

The impact factor had been abnormally low in recent years due to the increase in scientific output during the COVID-19 pandemic and the change in the formula used to calculate it by Clarivate Analytics to take into account early access content. In 2022, the impact factor decreased to 2.1, reflecting the normalization in article publication in 2022 and the move of the articles published during the pandemic and early access content to the denominator of the formula.

In spite of this, Anales de Pediatría managed to improve its position in the ranking of journals on paediatrics, reaching 66 out of 130 (49.6th percentile), very close to the second quartile. Predicting the impact factor for 2023—which is pending publication at the time of this writing—is very complicated, although we expect it will continue to decrease to approximate the values preceding the pandemic. This trend has also been observed in other journals. We need to stay focused on the objective to maintain our relative position in the paediatrics category, rather than the actual value of the impact factor. Thus, we are adopting a more holistic understanding of the influence and impact of the journal, taking other metrics and aspects of a qualitative nature into account, such as percentiles and normalised indices such as the Journal Citation Index (JCI), which was 0.63 in 2022.3

The estimate for 2023 obtained with Elsevier’s Cite Score is promising, as the number of citations increased between 2020 and 2023 (1691 citations) compared to the previous period (1562 citations), with a predicted score of 2.1, greater than the score of 2.0 for 2022. The official Cite Score for 2023 will be published in June.

Table 1 lists the 277 reviewers that collaborated with Anales de Pediatría in 2023. As we have done in previous editorials,4,5 we recognise the relevance of reviewers as a cornerstone of quality in the editorial process. We thank them for their disinterested effort and are currently exploring possible strategies to give recognition and incentives for their work. The AEP has agreed to offer free tuition for 1 course a year in its Continuum education platform to those experts who have collaborated with Anales de Pediatría as peer reviewers.

We also thank the authors for their interest and trust in our journal. From the Editorial Committee, we continue to work ethically and transparently in the careful consideration of each manuscript to guarantee its quality, relevance and contribution to scientific knowledge. We offer our apologies to authors for any errors that may occur.

The annual award Anales de Pediatría 2024 to the best article published by the journal in 2023 was given to the original article “Efecto de tres dietas enterales con diferente contenido en proteínas sobre el metabolismo proteico en lactantes críticamente enfermos: un ensayo clínico aleatorizado” by Fernández Montes et al.6

The award to the article that has contributed the most to the impact factor of Anales de Pediatría in the last 2 years was given to the original article “Aprendiendo a reanimar en la escuela. Estudio en escolares de 8–12 años” by Martínez-Isasi et al.7

We offer our congratulations to the authors of these articles.

We are grateful for the support of the Executive Board of the AEP to the activity of the Editorial Committee. We would also like to acknowledge how the AEP has promoted the initiatives implemented by the journal and its contribution to the journal’s diffusion.

Lastly, we take this opportunity to thank everyone whose work has contributed to the journal, and in particular the members of the working groups, committees and scientific societies of the AEP, who collaborate with us on an ongoing basis as expert reviewers and invited authors. We thank them, and we thank you, our readership, for embracing Anales de Pediatría.