Reviewer Responsibilities

For Reviewers

Peer reviewers at the Journal of Rural and Tropical Nursing (JRTN) accept responsibilities to the authors whose work they evaluate, to the journal, and to the wider scholarly community. This page sets out those responsibilities clearly and concisely.

Standards of Conduct

All reviewers are expected to uphold these standards throughout the review.

Confidentiality: treat the manuscript and all related correspondence as confidential. Do not share, reproduce, or discuss the manuscript with anyone other than the editorial team without explicit permission.

Objectivity: evaluate the manuscript on its scholarly merit. Personal, institutional, national, or ideological considerations must not influence the assessment.

Constructiveness: provide comments that are specific, evidence-based, and genuinely helpful to the authors, regardless of the recommendation.

Respect: maintain a professional and respectful tone in all written comments. Criticism must be directed at the work, not at the authors.

Timeliness: complete the review within the agreed timeframe or notify the editorial office promptly if an extension is needed.

Integrity: do not use unpublished material or ideas from the manuscript in your own work without the authors' consent.

Conflicts of Interest

Reviewers must disclose or act on any actual or potential conflict before or during the review.

A conflict of interest exists when a reviewer has a relationship or interest that could reasonably be perceived to affect objectivity. If a conflict is identified after the review has commenced, the reviewer must notify the editorial office immediately.

Grounds for Declining a Review

  • A close personal, professional, or financial relationship with one or more authors.
  • A direct competitive interest in the research reported in the manuscript.
  • Prior involvement in the design, data collection, or preparation of the manuscript.
  • Employment, funding, or affiliation that could create a perception of bias.
  • Any other circumstance that would prevent an objective assessment.

How to Disclose a Conflict

  • Decline the invitation and briefly describe the nature of the conflict in the response message.
  • If the conflict becomes apparent after accepting, notify the editorial office immediately and withdraw from the review.
  • The editorial office will treat all disclosures confidentially.
  • Suggesting an alternative reviewer when declining is appreciated but not required.

Reporting Suspected Misconduct

Reviewers who encounter concerns during a review are expected to report them to the editorial office.

Plagiarism or duplication If you recognise text, data, or findings that appear to have been copied or duplicated from published sources without attribution, report this in the confidential comments to the editor, citing the suspected source where possible.
Fabrication or manipulation If data, images, or results appear inconsistent or implausible in a way that raises concern about their integrity, describe the specific concern in the confidential editor comments.
Ethical concerns If the manuscript appears to describe research conducted without appropriate ethics approval or informed consent, note this concern in the confidential editor comments.
Undisclosed authorship issues If you have reason to believe that the authorship is inaccurate or that a legitimate contributor has been excluded, report this to the editorial office confidentially.

Use the confidential editor comment field

Concerns about potential misconduct should be reported in the confidential comments to the editor section of the review form. These comments are not transmitted to the authors. The editorial office will investigate the concern in accordance with COPE guidelines.

Use of Reviewed Manuscripts

No unauthorised use Unpublished ideas, data, or interpretations encountered in a manuscript under review must not be used in the reviewer's own work without the explicit written consent of the authors.
No disclosure Reviewers must not disclose the existence of a manuscript under review, its content, or its review status to anyone outside the peer review process.
No third-party assistance Reviewers must not transfer the review to another person without the prior consent of the editorial office. If assistance is sought, all additional individuals must agree to the same confidentiality obligations.
AI-assisted review If AI tools are used to assist with any aspect of the review, the reviewer must disclose this in the review form. Confidential manuscript content must never be entered into external AI services.