Revista Brasileira de Medicina de Família e Comunidade (RBMFC) is a peer-reviewed journal published by Sociedade Brasileira de Medicina de Família e Comunidade (SBMFC). Articles are published continuously throughout the year, and can be read and redistributed free of charge. Potential authors should take note of RBMFC's editorial policies, beginning with the journal focus and scope and the policy of the intended section, facilitating adherence to the author guidelines.
Editorial Policies
Contents:
- Focus and Scope
- Peer Review Process
- Conflicts of Interest
- Authorship and Collaboration
- Research Ethics
- Open Data and Reproducibility
- Publication Frequency
- Open Access Policy
- Archiving
Focus and Scope
Revista Brasileira de Medicina de Família e Comunidade (RBMFC) aims to advance the academic development of primary care, with an emphasis on family and community medicine.
RBMFC publishes articles that adequately address issues relevant to the family and community physician, as well as to other primary care professionals. Provided they meet this focus, articles from the entire spectrum of primary care research are accepted. RBMFC does not accept research involving animals.
In addition to publishing research, RBMFC also facilitates the exchange between primary care professionals, publishing sections such as clinical reviews, clinical cases, quality improvement reports and perspectives. More information in Section Policies.
RBMFC considers for publication original articles, which are not under evaluation by other scientific journals – with the exception of the Translated Articles section, which only accepts commissioned articles. Conference presentations (without fulltext peer review), preprints and monographs (such as dissertations and theses) are not considered previous publication.
Peer Review Process
When a manuscript is submitted to RBMFC, it is evaluated by an editor regarding the appropriateness to the scope of the journal; compliance with instructions to authors; absence of plagiarism;
and quality of content and writing. Manuscripts appropriate to the scope of the journal and instructions to authors, without evidence of plagiarism (or other forms of academic misconduct) and with reasonable content and presentation are sent for assessment by two or more peer reviewers, except when the section policy says otherwise.
Peer reviewers are selected by editors for their knowledge of the themes or methods of the manuscript, as well as good performance in the evaluation of previous manuscripts. Broadly speaking, reviewers should help authors improve their manuscripts, and help editors make their decisions. However, the decision of publishing a manuscript competes to the editors alone, who may occasionally disregard an assessment or convene an additional reviewer.
In RBMFC, peer review is double blind: the authors are blind to the reviewers’ identities, and reviewers are blind to the author’s and each other’s identities. The interactions are mediated by the editors, the only ones who know the identity of authors and reviewers. Editors communicate with peer reviewers through messages sent using RBMFC’s electronic platform; each message contains the relevant step-by-step instructions.
Manuscripts are considered the property of their authors, and peer review is confidential, so reviewers should not delegate or discuss manuscript evaluation to/with third parties. If a peer reviewer believes a college’s opinion would be valuable, he or she should suggest the college’s name to the editor. RBMFC does not publish the reports of peer reviewers or the pre-publication version of the manuscript. However, the editor usually forwards editorial decisions and anonymized reviews with the peer reviewers, so they can learn from each other’s work. Rejected manuscripts are archived with their review history for future reference, with no prejudice to its submission to other journals.
Since 2018, peer review is recognized through the annual publication of the name and institutional affiliation of those who provided peer review in that year. Interested peer reviewers may ask for certificates.
Researchers interested peer reviewing for RBMFC should read the policies and contact RBMFC.
Post-publication peer review is done through the Letters to the Editor section.
If any author wishes to question the opinion of a peer reviewer, he or she should contact the associate editor. If the author whishes wants to question an editorial decision instead, he or she should contact the executive secretary so that another editor reviews the issue.
Conflicts of Interest
RBMFC adopts the ICMJE definition for conflict of interest:
The potential for conflict of interest and bias exists when professional judgment concerning a primary interest (such as patients' welfare or the validity of research) may be influenced by a secondary interest (such as financial gain). Perceptions of conflict of interest are as important as actual conflicts of interest. [...]
Financial relationships (such as employment, consultancies, stock ownership or options, honoraria, patents, and paid expert testimony) are the most easily identifiable [...]. Other interests may also represent or be perceived as conflicts, such as personal relationships or rivalries, academic competition, and intellectual beliefs.
Authors should disclose all relationships and activities that might bias or be seen to bias their work, as explained in the Author guidelines. Likewise, peer reviewers should disclose any relationships or activities that could bias their opinions of the manuscript, and decline the invitation in case of significant conflict of interest. Editors do not participate in editorial decisions if they have relationships or activities that pose potential conflicts related to articles under consideration; such submissions are assigned to other editors, including guest editors when necessary.
Authorship and Collaboration
As defined by the ICMJE, the authorship of a work is defined by the fulfillment of these four criteria:
- Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
- Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
- Final approval of the version to be published; AND
- Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
Any person meeting these four criteria should be listed as an author. Persons meeting only three or fewer criteria are not considered authors, but should have their collaboration acknowledged as described in the Manuscript Preparation guidelines. The correct identification of who should be listed as an author or collaborator is the collective responsibility of the authors; it is not for RBMFC to arbitrate authorship conflicts.
At the time of submission, authors must declare compliance with the authorship criteria. In addition to being responsible for their own work, each author must be able to identify the contribution of each co-author, and be confident in the integrity of those contributions.
The corresponding author is responsible for communicating with the editorial staff, and his or her e-mail address is listed as contact information in the final article.
Research Ethics
Research involving human subjects should be conducted and reported in accordance with the 2013 Declaration of Helsinki. In addition, if conducted in Brazil, such research should comply with National Health Council Resolution nº 466 of December 12, 2012, or Resolution nº 510 of April 7, 2016, as appropriate; research conducted in other countries should follow equivalent legislation applicable to their jurisdiction. Typically, this includes approval of the research by a research ethics committee and written consent by participants or their guardians.
Authors should employ all reasonable efforts to keep the privacy of patients and research participants; it is not enough to mask the patients’ eyes in photographs or to use their name initials. In addition, the publication of clinical cases or individual (non-aggregated) data from research participants is contingent upon explicit written consent, unless local law dictates otherwise. As recommended by the Committee on Publication Ethics, RBMFC no longer requires authors of clinical cases studies to attach written consent to the submission, believing that keeping the written consent with the authors is the best way to preserve the patient’s anonymity.
Where applicable, the obtaining of ethical approval or written consent shall be informed in the Methods section of the manuscript, as described in Open Data and Reproducibility.
After the publication of an article, any suspected ethical infraction or other form of scientific misconduct should be reported to RBMFC, with all relevant details, so that the editors can investigate the suspicion and take any necessary measures. Exceptionally, RBMFC editors may share, with editors-in-chief of other journals or authors' institutions, information on articles under review or published if and to the extent that this is necessary to prevent or respond to a suspected failure ethics or other form of scientific misconduct.
Open Data and Reproducibility
RBMFC implements the Transparency and Openness Promotion guidelines. Except where otherwise noted, these policies apply to the Research Articles.
Citation standards. All data, program code and other methods should be appropriately cited, like articles are. All data sets and program code used in a publication should be cited in the text and listed in the reference section, and the reference should include a persistent identifier such as a Digital Object Identifier (DOI).
Data, analytical methods and research materials transparency. Since January 1, 2020, empirical research articles (including systematic literature reviews) must include a data sharing statement in the Methods section. (Previously, this was required of clinical trials but only a recommended for observational research). As described by the ICMJE, data sharing plans should indicate:
- Whether individual deidentified participant data (including data dictionaries) will be shared;
- What data in particular will be shared;
- Whether additional, related documents will be available (e.g., study protocol, statistical analysis plan, etc.; see Preregistration of analysis plans);
- When the data will become available and for how long;
- By what access criteria data will be shared (including with whom, for what types of analyses, and by what mechanism).
The statement about sharing the actual analytical methods (code executed by the statistical program) and the research materials is only a recommendation for all types of research.
Authors of secondary analyses using shared data must attest in the Methods that their use was in accordance with the terms (if any) agreed to upon their receipt.
Design and analysis transparency. When reporting original research, systematic reviews, clinical cases or quality improvement, authors are required to review relevant guidelines listed on the EQUATOR Network. For example: CONSORT for randomized controlled trials; STROBE for quantitative observational studies; PRISMA for systematic reviews; COREQ or SRQR for qualitative research; CARE for clinical cases; SQUIRE for quality improvement reports; as well as their extensions when applicable. During manuscript submission, authors must confirm that they have used the relevant reporting guidelines. Where appropriate, authors should cite in the Methods the reporting guideline used so that current and future readers can judge the adequacy of the reports according to the standards of the time.
Preregistration of studies. Clinical trials being initiated after September 27, 2007 must have been included in a public registry of clinical trials prior to the recruitment of the first participant. As defined by the World Health Organization, a clinical trial is any study that prospectively designates human participants (individually or in groups) for one or more health-related interventions to assess the effects on health outcomes. The Brazilian Registry of Clinical Trials and other primary members of the International Clinical Trials Registry Platform, as well as ClinicalTrials.gov, are accepted as public registries of clinical trials. The registration number must be included in the summary and in the methods of the clinical trial.
Preregistration of observational studies (in the public registries listed above) or systematic reviews (PROSPERO) is recommended and should be mentioned when done.
Preregistration of analysis plans.Authors should indicate in the Methods section of the manuscript whether the research conducted was preregistered with an analysis plan in an independent institutional repository such as Open Science Framework or ClinicalTrials.gov. The inclusion of an analysis plan involves the specification of the sequence of analyzes or the statistical model that will be reported. If the analysis plan was preregistered, authors should:
- Cite in the Methods the preregistered analysis plan;
- Report all preregistered analyses in the text, or disclose with explanation any changes in the analysis plan following preregistration;
- Clearly distinguish in text confirmatory and exploratory analyses.
Replication studies. RBMFC encourages the submission of replication studies, particularly research previously published in this journal.
Publication Frequency
Since 2016, RBMFC has been publishing articles on an ongoing basis. In that format, each article is published as soon as it is approved and edited, without waiting for an issue to close. With the exception of supplements, all articles are published in a single issue per year.
Open Access Policy
RBMFC publishes its articles immediately (without embargo) under Creative Commons’ Attribution 4.0 International license. This form of free access is called the “gold route,” but also “platinum route” or “diamond route” to emphasize that the journal does not have any article processing charge.
Of course, the authors are free to archive in personal or institutional repositories not only the original manuscript (as in the “green route”) but also the accepted or published version of the article ("green" color in Diadorim).
Archiving
RBMFC is digitally preserved by PKP Preservation Network and, since December 2019, also by Cariniana Network. networks use the LOCKSS system to create a distributed file system between participating libraries and allows them to create permanent journal files for preservation and restoration.
