Q: When submitting to a hybrid journal, does choosing open access (OA) or not make a difference to the acceptance rate?
Actually, as you may know, acceptance is not related to whether a journal supports OA or not, but on the basic merits of a paper such as novelty of the study, quality of the writing, and match and adherence to the journal’s focus and submission guidelines. The decision to go with OA (or not) basically depends on the funds/finances available to you and the desire to have your paper freely accessible by other researchers.
Coming to the journal, Psychiatry Research is a rapid publication journal (as it mentions on their site). So, if your paper meets all the above criteria, the time to publication should be less than that with a standard journal. Now, in case you believe your chances of acceptance may increase by publishing in a slightly less broad-based journal, you may consider their related journal, Asian Journal of Psychiatry (AJP). While AJP is a hybrid journal too, its impact factor (IF) and citation metrics are slightly lower than those of Psychiatry Research.
Ultimately, you will need to decide based on the above points and your own academic and publishing goals. All the best with whichever way you decide to go!
For more insights into the points discussed, you may also refer to the following resources:
This content belongs to the Journal submission & peer review Stage