Guidelines for Authors on Preparing Manuscripts

Only those with key responsibility for the material in the article should be listed as authors; others contributing to the work should be recognized in an Acknowledgment.

USE OF AI-ASSISTED TECHNOLOGIES
The American Psychiatric Association has adopted the following policies regarding the use of generative artificial/augmented intelligence (AI) in any manuscript or book submitted for potential publication:

• If a generative AI tool was used at any stage in the creation of a submitted work, both the relevant text of the submitted work and the cover letter or email accompanying the submission must fully identify all details of the AI use (including the tool used and the relevant output)
• Submitted works may not include images produced with generative AI at this time
• Only human persons can be listed as authors of a work (i.e., no AI tool may be identified as author)
• Authors are responsible for all material contained within the submitted work, including any material first produced through the use of generative AI. This comprises responsibility for the accuracy of such material (i.e., confirming that it is not incorrect, incomplete or biased) and for ensuring that all relevant material includes appropriate attribution and does not constitute plagiarism
• Material produced through a generative AI tool may not be cited as a primary source

DISCLOSURE OF COMMERCIAL INTERESTS
Disclosure of financial relationships is required at the time of submission and provisional acceptance of all manuscripts. The authors are responsible for informing PRCP of any additional financial relationships that may arise prior to the date of publication of their paper. Financial support for the study must be disclosed, whether from nonprofit or commercial sources. Nonfinancial forms of support, such as drugs, analytic support, or other assistance with preparation of the manuscript, must also be acknowledged. All authors must individually disclose all financial relationships from the previous 36 months, whether or not directly related to the subject of their paper. Such reporting must include all equity ownership, profit-sharing agreements, royalties, patents, and research or other grants from private industry or closely affiliated nonprofit funds. For income from pharmaceutical companies, the purpose must be specified, e.g., speakers bureau honoraria or other CME activity, travel funds, advisory panel payments, or research grants. If an author has no interests to disclose, this must be explicitly stated and will be acknowledged in print as “Dr. X reports no financial relationships with commercial interests.”

The Editors will review all author statements of financial support to determine if there is evidence of bias from these sources. If it appears that there may be, then further review and possible rejection of the manuscript may occur. Authors are encouraged to contact the Editor at any stage in the manuscript review process if they believe that they have relationships that require review.

PUBLICATION FORMS
On acceptance of a manuscript, the corresponding author and all coauthors will receive an e-mail with a link to the Certification of Authorship and Financial Disclosure forms and instructions for online submission of the forms. Accepted manuscripts will not be scheduled for publication until completed forms have been received.

PERMISSION FOR REPRODUCED WORK
In addition, authors must obtain letters of permission from publishers and pay any fees for use of extensive quotations (more than 500 words) or figures that have been previously published or submitted elsewhere.

OPEN-ACCESS POLICY
PRCP articles are published in accordance with open-access principles under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License. This license allows users to copy the article; to create extracts, abstracts, and new works from the article; to alter and revise the article; and to make commercial use of the article (including reuse and/or resale of the article by commercial entities), provided the user:

1. gives appropriate credit (with a link to the formal publication);
2. provides a link to the license;
3. indicates if changes were made; and
4. indicates that the licensor is not represented as endorsing the subsequent work.

PATIENT ANONYMITY
Ethical and legal considerations require careful attention to the protection of a patient’s anonymity in case reports and elsewhere. Identifying information such as names, initials, hospital numbers, and dates must be avoided. Also, authors must disguise identifying information when discussing patients’ characteristics and personal history.

INFORMED CONSENT
Manuscripts and letters to the Editor that report the results of experimental investigation and interviews with human subjects must include a statement that written informed consent was obtained after the procedure(s) had been fully explained. In the case of children, authors are asked to include information about whether the child’s assent was obtained. If your submission does not contain written informed consent or institutional review board approval, it will not be reviewed.

CASE REPORTS
While recognizing the educational value of case reports, APA Publishing seeks to ensure what it publishes respects an individual’s privacy and protects personal health information. For case reports describing an individual, we ask at submission for confirmation that the individual has seen the version of the report, that the individual understands it is being submitted for publication consideration, and that the individual has been informed that if published, the report will be freely accessible to anyone 1 year after publication and thus confidentiality cannot be guaranteed despite all efforts to disguise personal details.

REVIEW PROCESS
All manuscripts receive an initial review by the PRCP Editor to determine the originality, validity, and importance of content and conclusions. Manuscripts with insufficient priority for publication will be rejected promptly. Other manuscripts are sent for peer review. Authors will be sent reviewer comments that are judged to be useful to them. All reviewers remain anonymous.

AUTHOR NAME CHANGE
In cases where authors wish to change their name following publication, we will update and republish the paper and redeliver the updated metadata to indexing services. Authors should contact the journal’s Editorial Office with their name change.

Frequently Asked Questions

Please consult our FAQs page here.

MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION
Psychiatric Research and Clinical Practice uses a web-based manuscript submission and tracking system from manuscript submission to publication decision. There are no submission fees involved. To submit your paper, review the guidelines below. When you are satisfied that your manuscript meets the editorial and production requirements, please visit the manuscript submission site and either create an account or use your existing account. Then follow the instructions to upload your manuscript. All submissions must include a title page and be accompanied by a cover letter and list of suggested reviewers.

TYPES OF ARTICLES

Reviews
Review articles are intended to bring together important information on a topic of general interest to psychiatry. This section is not intended to be a forum for the presentation of new data. Review articles are usually solicited by the Editors, but we will consider unsolicited material. We rarely proceed with Review papers for which the first author is a student and has not contributed to substantive work in the field on his or her own accord. Please contact the editorial office before writing a review article for PRCP. The text is usually within 5,000 words with an abstract of no more than 250 words, a maximum of 5 tables and figures (total), and up to 50 references. Word count includes only the main body of text (i.e., not tables, figures, abstracts, or references). Additional tables or figures can be submitted in a separate file as supplemental data for posting online. (See Supplemental Files for types of data and formats acceptable for posting online.)

Articles
Articles are reports of original work that embody scientific excellence in psychiatric medicine and advances in clinical research. Typically, articles will contain new data derived from a sizable series of patients or participants. The text is usually within 3,500 words, which does not include an abstract of no more than 250 words, a maximum of 5 tables and figures (total), and up to 40 references. Word count includes only the main body of text (i.e., not tables, figures, abstracts, or references). Additional tables can be submitted as a supplemental file for posting online. (See Supplemental Files for types of data and formats acceptable for posting online.)

Protocol Papers
The editorial team at PRCP welcomes your submissions of methods and research processes. Authors considering submitting a manuscript under this category are advised to consult and follow the SPIRIT statement for clinical trial protocols and the PRISMA-P guidelines for systematic review protocols. For qualitative studies, authors are advised to check SRQR, which is a synthesis of recommendations for reporting qualitative research, and to follow the COREQ checklist for interviews and focus groups. Protocols of randomized controlled trials should follow the CONSORT guidelines, and all Clinical Trials should be registered (as noted above). The registration number should be provided in your manuscript. We cannot consider manuscripts reporting trials that were registered retrospectively. The month and year of obtaining ethical approval should be mentioned in the abstract and main manuscript. Protocols should be written with a view to carrying out the study (i.e., “data collection will involve; data will be analyzed…’) and not as if the study has been completed. Typical lengths for manuscripts of this type are about 5,000 words (excluding references which generally number 40 or fewer) with an abstract of 250 words or less. The Journal will consider longer initial submissions provided that the accompanying cover letter outlines the reasons for doing so and with the understanding that accepted manuscripts may be edited to a length more typical of this manuscript type. Additional flexibility will be considered by the Editor-in-Chief on a case-by-case basis.

Letters to the Editor
Brief letters (maximum of 500 words, including references) will be considered if they include a cover letter indicating that the correspondence is “for publication.” Novel case reports and other noncontrolled observations should be submitted as Letters to the Editor. Case reports will be peer reviewed; authors must provide a list of 4 suggested reviewers and their e-mail addresses. Letters critical of an article published in PRCP must be received within 6 weeks of the article’s publication. Letters received after the deadline will not be considered for publication; those considered will be sent to the article’s corresponding author to reply on behalf of the group, which will represent the final say on the matter. No additional letters discussing an exchange published in the PRCP’s Letters to the Editor will be considered. Such letters must include the title and author of the article and the month and year of publication. Letters that do not meet these specifications will be returned unreviewed. Letters will be published on a space-available basis.

Clinical Case Conferences
Clinical case conferences are disguised accounts of the diagnosis and treatment of individuals who present interesting problems of the nature that typically involve a departmental forum discussion. Following the presentation of the case there should be a brief review of the literature to place the case in hand in context. The text of clinical case conferences is usually within 2,000 words and can have up to 20 references; the submission should lead with the case (i.e., no abstract or introduction).

Viewpoints
Viewpoints may address virtually any important topic in psychiatry and generally are not linked to a specific article. They should be well focused, scholarly, and clearly presented but should not include the findings of new research or data that have not been previously published. Viewpoints may have no more than 3 authors., and the corresponding author should have sufficient expertise and experience with the topic to provide an authoritative opinion. Submissions can be up to 1200 words of text—or 1000 words of text with 1 small table or figure—with 7-10 references that are as current as possible.

MANUSCRIPT ORGANIZATION AND FORMAT

All parts of the manuscript, including vignettes, quotations, references, and tables, must be double-spaced. The manuscript should be arranged in the following order, with each item beginning a new page: 1) title page, 2) abstract, 3) text, 4) references, and 5) tables and/or figures. All pages must be numbered.

Cover Letter
The cover letter may be uploaded as a separate document or entered in the spaces provided in Details and Comments.

Title Page

ABSTRACT
Abstracts are sent to various archiving and indexing services and aid in your article’s discoverability. The abstract is a single paragraph no longer than 250 words in the active voice and third person. All article submissions (Articles, Reviews) should include structured abstracts with the following information, under the headings indicated: Objective—the primary purpose of the article; Method—data sources, subjects, design, measurements, data analysis; Results—key findings; and Conclusions—implications, future directions. Use complete sentences for all sections.

TEXT
The contents of the text should include four major sections: introduction, method, results, and discussion. The method section should provide a comprehensive description of the nature of the study group, methods for recruitment, measurement and evaluation techniques (including information about reliability as appropriate), and data analysis. The end of the section describing the study participants should clearly state that participants provided written informed consent after receiving a complete description of the study. Strengths and weaknesses of the study should be presented in the discussion.

REFERENCES

References are numbered and listed by their order of appearance in text; the text citation is followed by the appropriate reference number in parentheses. Do not arrange the list alphabetically. References in tables and figures are numbered as though the tables and figures were part of the text. References should be restricted to closely pertinent material. Accuracy of the citation is the author’s responsibility. References should conform exactly to the original spelling, accents, punctuation, etc. Authors should be sure that all references listed have been cited in text. Personal communications, unpublished manuscripts, manuscripts submitted but not yet accepted, and similar unpublished items should not appear in the reference list. Such citations may be noted in text (e.g., unpublished data, Jones W, Pogachar M, Stearman K, et al., 2016). It is the author’s responsibility to obtain permission to refer to another individual’s unpublished observations. Manuscripts that are actually in press may be cited as such in the reference list; the name of the journal or publisher and location must be included. References to the editions of DSM should not be included in the reference list.

Type references in the Vancouver style shown below. Abbreviations of journal names should conform to the style used in “NLM Catalog: Journals referenced in the NCBI Databases” (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/journals); journals not indexed there should not be abbreviated.

1. Zinbarg RE, Barlow DH, Liebowitz M, et al: The DSM-IV field trial for mixed anxiety-depression. Am J Psychiatry 1994; 151:1153–1162
2. Burrows GD, Norman TR, Judd FK, et al: Short-acting versus long-acting benzodiazepines: discontinuation effects in panic disorders. J Psychiatr Res 1990; 24(suppl 2):65–72
3. Beahrs JO: The cultural impact of psychiatry: the question of regressive effects, in American Psychiatry After World War II: 1944–1994. Edited by Menninger RW, Nemiah JC. Washington, DC, American Psychiatric Press, 2000, pp 321–342
4. Riba MB, Ravindranath D (eds): Clinical Manual of Emergency Psychiatry. Arlington, VA, American Psychiatric Association Publishing, 2010
5. Achieving the Promise: Transforming Mental Health Care in America. Pub no SMA-03-3832. Rockville, MD, Department of Health and Human Services, President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health, 2003
6. Compressed Mortality File: Mortality for 1999–2006. Atlanta, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. wonder.cdc.gov/cmf-icd10.html. Accessed Sept 15, 2010

TABLES AND FIGURES

For articles and reviews, include no more than 5 tables, figures, or combination of tables and figures. Include displayed material only when it presents relevant data or concepts more clearly than could be done in text. Data in short tables often can be incorporated more concisely in text. Data in simple graphs may be more appropriately presented in a table or text. Authors will be asked to delete extraneous material or will have the option of moving the material to a supplemental file accompanying the article. Checklists and forms generally are included only as a supplemental file.

Figure placement, by stage of manuscript
Stage	Placement
Submission	Within Main Body file, at end
Revision and resubmission	Separate .tiff, .eps, Excel, or PowerPoint files
Acceptance	Separate .tiff, .eps, Excel, or PowerPoint files

Format

1. Definitions of symbols appearing in the figure should be presented in a key within the figure, rather than in the title or footnotes.
2. Except for the key, avoid using internal type (e.g., placing statistical values within a graph).
3. Two-dimensional graphs should not be represented in three dimensions.

Content

1. Each complete figure (including titles and footnotes) should be understandable without reference to the text.
2. Figures should represent data visually rather than numerically.
3. If error bars are included, standard deviations, rather than standard errors of the mean, should be used.
4. Only the most widely recognized abbreviations may be used.
5. In a graph comparing different groups of subjects, the number of subjects in each group should appear with the name of the group—in the key, in the headings below the horizontal axis, or in the title.
6. Footnotes may be cited with lowercase superscript letters. Footnote citations may be given in both the title and the body of the figure; within the body of the figure, they should proceed from left to right.
7. For statistical comparisons noted in figures, provide complete statistical data in footnotes. If numerous analyses are presented, simple p values may be given in the footnotes, in which case the footnotes should be indicated by single asterisk, double asterisk, etc.

SUPPLEMENTAL FILES

PRCP allows authors to submit supplemental files to be posted online in support of their articles. To be accepted for posting, supplemental material must be essential to the scientific integrity and excellence of the manuscript. The material is subject to the same editorial standards as the online journal and will be submitted for peer review. If the paper is accepted, supplemental material will not be formatted or edited by editorial staff and therefore should be in final form for posting “as is.” The journal will accept the following categories of supplemental data:

• Detailed tables (up to 3) that contain data of use to other investigators. Data should be summarized in the text of the manuscript.
• The CONSORT table and figure for clinical trials are also appropriate for the data supplement.
• Appendices, questionnaires, tests, checklists, etc., should be submitted as a supplemental file.

Supplemental files should be uploaded as one file separate from the manuscript and named Online Supplement when uploading. Please remember that the larger the file size, the longer it will take users to download. For this reason, please limit your files to 10 MB. The journal can accept the following formats:

• Plain text (.txt)
• HTML page (.html)
• JPEG image (.jpg)
• GIF image (.gif)
• Adobe PDF (.pdf)
• Excel spreadsheet (.xls)
• ZIP compressed file (.zip)
• Word document (.doc)
• Tiff image (.tif)
• PowerPoint presentation (.ppt)
• Encapsulated Postscript document (.eps)
• Mp3 file (.mp3)
• QuickTime video

If your document type is not listed here, please contact the editorial office at [email protected]. Please name your files and cite within the printed text as ST1 for tables, SF1 for figures, SR1 for references, and SA1 for appendices.

PROCESSING OF ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPTS

Manuscripts are accepted with the understanding that the Editor and the editorial staff have the right to make revisions aimed at greater conciseness, clarity, and conformity with journal style. Preliminary page proofs will be sent to the corresponding author. Authors who will be away from their offices for a long period or who change address after notification of acceptance should inform the journal staff.

REVIEWERS

Becoming a Reviewer
Individuals interested in reviewing for Psychiatric Research and Clinical Practice should visit ScholarOne Manuscripts and create an account.

Abstracts of articles within a reviewer’s given area of expertise are sent via e-mail to the reviewer. Within 3 days, the reviewer is asked to indicate willingness to review and availability to perform the review within a 2-week time frame.

Competing Interests
Most competing interests, financial or otherwise, do not disqualify one from participating in the peer-review process, but the journal requests that you indicate any conflict that you may have in reviewing any particular manuscript. You can also notify the journal if you feel that you cannot review a manuscript because of a competing interest. This will not affect your reviewer status in any way.

Confidentiality
Manuscripts must be reviewed with due respect for authors’ confidentiality. In submitting their manuscripts for review, authors entrust the journal with the results of their scientific work and creative effort, on which their reputation and career may depend. Authors’ rights may be violated by disclosure of the confidential details of the review of their manuscript. Reviewers should never copy, share, or discuss a manuscript under review or the data within with anyone without expressed written permission of the journal’s Editor and the authors.

Reprints & Permissions
Contact the Journal Editorial Office