Listening to Our Readers

As editors in chief of the American Journal of Critical Care (AJCC), we know that listening carefully to our readers is crucial to continued excellence. AJCC is one of 3 journals published by the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN). Critical Care Nurse and AACN Advanced Critical Care are the other 2 AACN journals. AJCC supports the AACN mission: “AACN drives excellence in acute and critical care for nurses, patients and families.”¹ 

AJCC is AACN’s bimonthly scientific journal, focused on publishing high-quality nursing and interdisciplinary research that informs and supports bedside clinical practice. We embrace a broad array of content to address the diverse interests of AACN members. While all AACN members receive AJCC as a member benefit, AJCC also enjoys a wide readership beyond AACN, including through nonmember subscriptions and PubMed indexing. In this editorial, we share some of our strategies for staying connected with and responsive to our readers.

We want an optimal experience for our readers. Readers are central to AJCC’s mission “to create a space for our readers and members of AACN to engage with original research and innovation in critical care.”²  AJCC is the bridge between the daily work of the ICU team and research that improves practice. We understand that our readers have many options to stay informed about clinical research and innovation, and we know that those who read AJCC also read other nursing and interdisciplinary journals. We want to publish meaningful, rigorous studies that have clear clinical relevance, point to the future of practice, and engage critical thinking. We do not want to publish things that are too far removed from the bedside. In order to meet our mission, we continually strive to understand readers’ involvement with the journal, what they value, and how the journal can be improved to better serve them.

Although readers are the focus of this editorial, they are not the only stakeholders we serve. Supporting and growing the community of critical care nurse researchers and their interdisciplinary colleagues is essential to our mission. The engagement and leadership of nurse researchers in the design, conduct, dissemination, and implementation of acute and critical care research is essential to ensure that problems of relevance to nurses and interdisciplinary teams of critical care providers continue to be addressed. AJCC is welcoming, respectful, and responsive to the authors who choose to trust our journal as the venue for dissemination of their research. Another group of individuals who are important to AJCC are the peer reviewers, who are essential to maintaining the journal’s quality and relevance. We are truly grateful for the dedicated contributions of our outstanding peer reviewers. If you are currently a peer reviewer, thank you! If not, we would encourage you to consider volunteering to share your expertise through serving as a peer reviewer.

As a scientific journal, we value data! Our interest in readership data is shared by the AACN leadership; each year, AACN conducts an annual readership survey focused on one of the 3 AACN journals on a rotating basis. These surveys provide in-depth information about reader satisfaction and potential opportunities for each journal every 3 years. The survey methods are robust, and AACN analyzes the data by segments (eg, nursing specialty, role, and generations—to fully understand the complexity of members’ needs) and compares present and past results to identify longitudinal trends. Survey results are shared with editors and are discussed among AACN leadership, editors and the publishing team, and the journal editorial board and used to guide future directions.

The most recent AJCC readership survey was conducted in 2024, with prior surveys conducted in 2018 and 2021. Survey respondents were recruited in 2 different ways. First, attendees of AACN’s 2024 National Teaching Institute (NTI) were encouraged to complete the survey in person at the AACN Publishing booth in the NTI exhibit hall May 21–22, 2024. For those of you who attended NTI and stopped by the Publishing booth to complete the survey, thank you! Second, a Qualtrix survey was sent to 20 000 AACN members by email following NTI; that group was selected to represent a broad distribution of AACN members. If you received an email invitation to respond and did so, thank you!

The information that was collected by AACN has been important in continuing to connect us with reader assessments, desires, and concerns. Congruent with past surveys, 90% of respondents agreed that AJCC is relevant to their practice. We will continue to hold relevance to practice as a central requirement when curating content for the journal.

From the survey, we know that our readers continue to value the print version of the journal. Continuing the trend from previous surveys, print was still the most popular format for survey respondents. The print version facilitates easy identification of content of interest, with readers reporting that they either peruse the table of contents or skim through the print journal. The print version continues to lend itself well to informal breakroom discussions centered on education of staff, changes in practice, and advocating for patients.

We also learned that, compared with past surveys, respondents report a slight reduction in reading for both print and digital versions. Specialty columns such as Clinical Pearls, Clinical Evidence Review, Evidence-Based Review, Patient Care Page, and ECG Puzzler remain popular. We understand that these short, pithy offerings present information about AJCC content in easily digestible packets. We are committed to continued excellence in the specialty columns and to exploring additional columns. Look for a reintroduction of a column on ethical issues in the near future.

Knowing that those who provide direct patient care have limited bandwidth to devote to reading the journal, we pay particular attention to readability and formatting of research reports to ensure they are accessible to nurses in multiple specialty areas and different levels of experience. AJCC uses a robust peer review process to safeguard accuracy and relevance of the articles we publish, and our expert reviewers are exceptionally adept at guiding authors to clarify the presentation of their work. We encourage authors to make the clinical implications of their work explicit. Full research articles provide up-to-date information that is clinically applicable. Work that is intriguing but more preliminary is published as brief reports. The AJCC production team uses color, graphics, and formatting of tables and figures to enhance readability and accessibility of the information provided.

The journal website (www.ajcconline.org) provides additional complementary ways to interact with AJCC content.³  AJCC offers continuing education credit associated with selected articles; this encourages readers to connect more deeply with content in ways that directly enhance their clinical practice. The website also features video interviews with authors, providing authors an opportunity to talk about how the research was conducted and the impact of their research on improving clinical practice. The website dynamically tracks the most-read and most-cited AJCC articles in the digital format of the journal. The lists on the website of “Latest,” “Most Read,” and “Most Cited” articles include links to go directly to the 5 papers in each category. We monitor this digital traffic regularly as a way to gauge engagement with the digital format of AJCC and to gain insight into what topics are of greatest interest to readers.

We work to provide multiple ways to interact with AJCC research content that go beyond reading the article in print or digital format. As an example, one of the articles identified as “Most Read” in October 2024 was “Explainable Artificial Intelligence for Early Prediction of Pressure Injury Risk.”⁴  The website has a video interview with Dr Jenny Alderden discussing this innovative and exciting work, and there is a companion continuing education offering.⁵  This multimodal approach is designed to engage our readers and encourage layers of interaction with important content.

Importantly, we seek out opportunities to connect in person with readers, authors, and reviewers. We enjoy speaking directly with AACN members at NTI, including offering publication sessions, one-on-one consultations, and meet-the-editor sessions at the AACN Publishing booth. As we attend other conferences, we look for opportunities to connect with colleagues in critical care, including potential authors and reviewers, to understand their experiences and needs.

We are always seeking to improve the journal and its value to our readers. We are grateful for the support of AACN—both leadership and members—in the journey to continue to bring rigorous and clinically relevant research to the bedside clinicians who are the driving force for improving patient outcomes. Thank you for the opportunities to listen to you, our readers!