Editorial Policies
How manuscripts are handled, how interests are declared, how the published record is corrected, and the ethical standards that apply to research addressing mental health in women and girls.
Handling
How a manuscript is handled
- Editorial screening. All submissions undergo initial editorial screening. Manuscripts that meet the journal's scope and minimum requirements proceed to independent peer review. Scope is assessed during initial editorial screening. A scope decision is separate from an assessment of scientific quality.
- Editor assignment. A handling editor is assigned whose own field covers the manuscript, and who has no conflict with the authors, their institutions or their funders.
- Peer review. Single-blind by default; double-blind review is available on request. Manuscripts that proceed to external peer review are normally evaluated by at least two independent subject-matter experts.
- Decision. Editorial decisions are based on scope, scientific quality, methodological rigor, ethical compliance, reporting quality, and relevance to the journal.
- Revision and acceptance. Authors respond point by point. The handling editor confirms the response is adequate before acceptance.
Double-blind review. Where it is requested, editors must ensure that author-identifying information is not shared with reviewers, reviewers must not attempt to identify the authors, and authors prepare an anonymized manuscript as the instructions for authors describe.
Independence
Independence, interests and confidentiality
- Editorial independence
- Editorial decisions are independent of fees, membership, editorial roles, and any optional author service. Review speed is not sold, and no route through the journal can be purchased.
- Editor-authored submissions
- Editors recuse themselves from decisions on their own submissions, and those manuscripts are handled independently by an editor with no relevant conflict. Editorial handling and decisions on the editor’s own work remain independent.
- Conflicts of interest
- Financial and non-financial interests and all funding sources are declared by authors, and by the editors and reviewers who handle a manuscript. An editor or reviewer with a competing interest declines the assignment.
- Confidentiality
- A manuscript under consideration is confidential. It is not shown or discussed outside the review process, and reviewers must not retain or use unpublished material. After submitting the review, reviewers should securely delete downloaded manuscript files and must not retain or use unpublished material.
Authorship
Authorship and contribution
- Who qualifies
- Authorship requires a substantial contribution to the work, involvement in drafting or revising it, approval of the version submitted, and agreement to be accountable for it.
- Contributor roles
- Manuscripts state what each author contributed. Contributions that do not meet the authorship threshold are acknowledged instead.
- Changes to the author list
- Any addition, removal or reordering after submission requires written agreement from every author, sent to the editorial office.
- Corresponding author
- One author takes responsibility for communication, for the accuracy of the author list, and for responding to questions after publication.
Research ethics
Research with people describing their own mental health
These requirements follow from the journal's subject. Its participants are often pregnant, recently delivered, bereaved, detained, or describing violence.
- Ethics approval and consent
- Research with human participants reports the approving ethics committee, its reference where one is issued, and the consent procedure under which the work was conducted. Where consent was waived, the manuscript states the ground on which the committee waived it.
- Privacy and sensitive data
- Mental-health information is treated as sensitive throughout. Manuscripts remove detail by which a participant or a service user could be recognized, including combinations of detail that would identify someone in a small setting. Case material is publishable only with documented consent for publication.
- Vulnerable and perinatal participants
- Where participants are pregnant, recently delivered, bereaved, detained, or recruited while receiving care, the manuscript describes the additional safeguards applied to recruitment, consent and withdrawal, and how the research was kept separate from the participant's care.
- Trauma and violence research
- Studies involving interpersonal violence or trauma describe the distress protocol, the referral route offered to participants, and the steps taken to protect participant safety, including where disclosure could place a participant at risk.
- Suicide and self-harm
- Research touching suicide or self-harm follows recognized safe-reporting practice: method and means detail is not published, and findings are reported without framing that could serve as instruction.
- Sex and gender reporting
- Sex and gender are reported as distinct variables where both are relevant, with a statement of how each was ascertained and who was and was not included.
- Clinical trials
- Interventional clinical trials must be registered in an accepted public trial registry at or before the first participant provides consent for enrollment. The registry name, registration number, and registration date must be reported in the manuscript.
- Data availability
- Every empirical research manuscript must include a data-availability statement. Where mental-health data cannot be shared, the statement says so and gives the reason.
- Responsible interpretation
- Observational associations alone do not establish causation; causal analyses should state assumptions, address bias and report uncertainty and sensitivity analyses. Interpret findings within the design’s strengths and limitations, including the population and setting to which they apply.
Integrity
Publication integrity
- Originality
- Submissions must be original and not under consideration elsewhere. Submissions are screened for similarity; a report is read in context by an editor and is never an automatic accept or reject.
- Duplicate and redundant publication
- Work substantially overlapping an author's earlier publication is disclosed at submission, with the earlier work supplied.
- Preprints
- Posting a preprint does not preclude submission. The preprint and its identifier are disclosed at submission.
- Fabrication and falsification
- Invented, altered or selectively omitted data is misconduct and is handled as such, whether found before or after publication.
- Image and data manipulation
- Adjustments must apply to the whole image and must not obscure, move or introduce a feature. Original files are supplied on request.
- Reviewer and editor conduct
- Using a manuscript's content, delaying a competitor's work, or arranging review to favour an outcome is misconduct and is investigated on the same terms as author misconduct.
The record
Correcting the published record
Errors in the published record are corrected in the public record, through a correction, an expression of concern, or a retraction linked to the original article. A notice states what changed and why, is linked from the article it concerns, and is never removed.
An article is not deleted from the record. Where an article must be withdrawn after publication, a retraction notice stands in its place and the original remains accessible so the citation record stays intact.
- Correction
- An error that affects a specific point but not the findings.
- Expression of concern
- A well-founded concern that is not yet resolved. It is replaced by a correction or a retraction once the matter is settled.
- Retraction
- A finding that the work is unreliable, whether through error or misconduct.
- Withdrawal before publication
- Terms are stated on the article processing charges page.
Appeals
Appeals and complaints
An author who believes a decision rests on a factual error or a misunderstanding of the work may appeal in writing to the editorial office, stating the specific point at issue and responding to the reviewers. An appeal is considered by an editor who was not party to the original decision. Appeals are not a second round of review, and a decision on an appeal is final.
Complaints about editorial process, conduct, or the handling of a concern are sent to the editorial office and are answered. A complaint about a named editor is handled by someone else.
AI
Use of AI tools
- Authors
- An AI tool cannot be an author: it cannot take responsibility for the work. Any use in preparing a manuscript is disclosed, with the tool named and the use described. Authors remain responsible for everything in the submission, including anything a tool produced.
- Reviewers and editors
- Reviewers must obtain journal permission before using AI to assist with a review. Any permitted use must be disclosed, and confidential manuscript content must not be uploaded where confidentiality cannot be assured. The same applies to editors handling a manuscript.
- Instructions for AuthorsWhat to prepare, and the reporting standards that apply.
- For EditorsHow these policies are applied in handling a manuscript.
- For ReviewersWhat the journal asks of a reviewer.
- Aims and ScopeWhat the journal publishes and how fit is assessed.
Concerns about a published article, or about editorial process, are welcome at the editorial office. The Journal of Women's Mental Health (JWMH) is published by Open Access Pub under CC BY 4.0. Contact the editorial office.
Digital preservation
This journal’s content is committed to Portico, a not-for-profit digital-preservation archive run by ITHAKA (the organization behind JSTOR). As articles are deposited they enter Portico’s permanent archive, so the scholarly record stays available for the long term — even if a title one day ceases to publish. Read our preservation policy.