Editorial Policies

Focus and Scope

South African Family Practice (SAFP) is a peer-reviewed scientific journal, which strives to provide primary care physicians and researchers with a broad range of scholarly work in the disciplines of Family Medicine, Primary Health Care, Rural Medicine, District Health and other related fields. SAFP publishes original research, clinical reviews, and pertinent commentary that advance the knowledge base of these disciplines. The content of SAFP is designed to reflect and support further development of the broad basis of these disciplines through original research and critical review of evidence in important clinical areas; as well as to provide practitioners with continuing professional development material. SAFP adheres to the international acceptable editorial standards, as published by The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).

 

Section Policies

Index

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed

CPD Editorial

Unchecked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Unchecked Peer Reviewed

Editorials

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Unchecked Peer Reviewed

Letters to the editor

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Unchecked Peer Reviewed

Correspondence

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Unchecked Peer Reviewed

Forum

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed

InfoPOEMs

Unchecked Open Submissions Unchecked Indexed Unchecked Peer Reviewed

Special Series

Unchecked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed

Original Research

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed

Scientific letters

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed

Case studies

Editors
  • Gboyega Ogunbanjo, Associate Editor - South African Family Practice
Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed

CPD

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed

Review Articles

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed

Regulars

Editors
  • Douw Greeff, Medpharm Publications (Pty) Ltd
Unchecked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Unchecked Peer Reviewed

Book Reviews

Checked Open Submissions Unchecked Indexed Unchecked Peer Reviewed

Press Releases

Unchecked Open Submissions Unchecked Indexed Unchecked Peer Reviewed

Guidelines

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed

Obituary

Unchecked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed
 

Peer Review Process

All manuscripts will be subject to blinded peer-review and the decision of the Editor will be final. Articles submitted for consideration by the editor should not have been published before, either in total or in part, nor be currently submitted to any other publisher. The Editor retains the right to stylise and shorten any material accepted for publication. Accepted manuscripts will be copy edited and galley proofs will be sent to the author for approval.

Preference is given to articles presenting the results of original research or evidence-based clinical reviews, relevant to family medicine, primary health care, district health or rural medicine.

Opinions expressed in the Journal should not be taken to represent the policies of the SA Academy of Family Practice/Primary Care, the Family Medicine Education Consortium (FaMEC), or the Publisher (Medpharm Publications Pty Ltd).

Submissions in any official language of South Africa will be considered for publication within the framework of the SA Fam Pract mission to appeal to the widest possible readership.

 

Publication Frequency

SA Family Practice is published 6 times per year, bi-monthly, since 2008.

 

Author Self-Archiving

Author Self-Archiving is permitted. No restrictions.

 

Archiving

This journal utilizes the LOCKSS system to create a distributed archiving system among participating libraries and permits those libraries to create permanent archives of the journal for purposes of preservation and restoration. More...

 

Access to the online journal

Access to the content of the online journal is immediate upon publication and free to the reader.

 

Access to the print journal

Access to the print journal is by paid subscription.

 

Indexing

Indexed in Excerpta Medica Database (EMBASE), EMCare, Scopus and by Google Scholar.
Abstracts also appear in the African Index Medicus, African Journals Online, CAB Abstracts, and Global Health

 

Citation information

SA Family Practice is indexed in Scopus and its impact factor is calculated by SCImago

The SJR indicator measures the scientific influence of the average article in a journal, it expresses how central to the global scientific discussion an average article of the journal is.

Cites per Doc. (2y) measures the scientific impact of an average article published in the journal, it is computed using the same formula than journal impact factor ™ (Thomson Reuters).

SCImago Journal & Country Rank

 

Editorial Policies

Human Research

All research involving human participants must have been approved by the authors' institutional review board or equivalent committee(s) and that board must be named by the authors in the manuscript. For research involving human participants, informed consent must have been obtained (or the reason for lack of consent explained, e.g. the data were analyzed anonymously) and all clinical investigation must have been conducted according to the principles expressed in the Declaration of Helsinki. Authors should submit a statement from their ethics committee or institutional review board indicating the approval of the research. We also encourage authors to submit a sample of a patient consent form and may require submission of completed forms on particular occasions.

For studies involving humans categorized by race/ethnicity, age, disease/disabilities, religion, sex/gender, sexual orientation, or other socially constructed groupings, authors should, as much as possible,

• make explicit their methods of categorizing human populations;
• define categories in as much detail as the study protocol allows;
• justify their choices of definitions and categories, including for example whether any rules of human categorization were required by their funding agency;
• explain whether (and if so, how) they controlled for confounding variables such as socioeconomic status, nutrition, environmental exposures, etc.

In addition, outmoded terms and potentially stigmatizing labels should be changed to more current, acceptable terminology. Examples: "Caucasian" should be changed to "white" or "of [Western] European descent" (as appropriate); "cancer victims" should be changed to "people with cancer".

Animal Research

All animal work must have been conducted according to relevant national and international guidelines. We specifically require authors to include details of animal welfare and steps taken to ameliorate suffering in all work involving non-human primates.

Competing Interests

Authors are asked at submission to declare whether they have any financial, personal, or professional interests that could be construed to have influenced their paper. Reviewers are also asked to declare any interests that might interfere with their objective assessment of a manuscript. Any relevant competing interests of authors must be available to editors and reviewers during the review process and will be stated in published articles.

Scientific and Editorial Misconduct

Scientific misconduct is defined by the USA Office of Research Integrity as "fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, or other practices that seriously deviate from those that are commonly accepted within the academic community for proposing, conducting, or reporting research." In cases where there is a suspicion or allegation of scientific misconduct or fraudulent research in manuscripts submitted for review, SAFPJ reserves the right to pass along these manuscripts to the author’s employer, sponsoring or funding institution or other appropriate authority for investigation. Although SAFPJ recognizes its responsibility to ensure that the suspicion of misconduct has been addressed, we do not ourselves make such determinations.

Confidentiality

Editors and reviewers are requested to treat all submitted manuscripts in strict confidence.

Submission of Related Manuscripts

When submitting their article, all authors are asked to indicate that they have not submitted a related or duplicate manuscript for publication elsewhere. If related work has been submitted elsewhere, then a copy must be included with the article submitted to SAFPJ. Reviewers will be asked to comment on the overlap between related submissions.

Acknowledgement

These policies were adapted with gratitude from PLoS One (www.plosone.org)

Last updated: 3 November 2009



SA Fam Pract | ISSN: 1726-426X

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