What does Clinical Rehabilitation publish
What does Clinical Rehabilitation publish?
Clinical Rehabilitation is an international journal which aims to publish the best scientific research articles and other articles on all aspects of activity limitation (disability) and rehabilitation. Articles must also be readable, enjoyable and easily understood because the journal is aimed at an international and multidisciplinary audience.
Submitted articles are subject to a process of review and selection to ensure that the content is of high standard. The core values of Clinical Rehabilitation that guide this selection and prioritisation of submitted articles are that all articles published should:
❖ Be scientifically sound, either presenting new data and/or analyses, or using evidence to support any opinions or suggestions.
❖ Be logically sound, using coherent arguments to explore or defend ideas and conclusions
❖ Avoid bias as far as possible, and acknowledge openly any bias that may be present
❖ Be useful, of interest and relevant to professional staff working in the field of rehabilitation both clinically and in research
❖ Be ethically sound both in terms of the underlying research (if any) and in terms of its content and style.
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All articles submitted are considered for publication, and all articles that are considered by the editor to be potentially worthy of publication are sent out for peer review. The editor does not adhere to fixed rules, and is always happy to be approached by authors for informal advice on potential articles (email an abstract to clinical.rehabilitation@sagepub.co.uk).
Articles published will tend to fall into one of the following groups, but these groups are neither exhaustive nor exclusive.
Original research/data
These papers will be reporting on studies undertaken to answer some question. The studies may be:
❖ Evaluating an intervention, usually by a randomised or otherwise controlled study design
❖ Evaluating service delivery, either by ‘audit’ or using more experimental designs
❖ Exploring inter-relationships between different factors. These may be studies investigating prognosis, recovery, responsiveness to treatment, other inter-relationships etc
❖ Descriptive, usually natural history studies in which case epidemiologically-sound studies are much preferred
❖ Investigating data collection tools (assessments and measures). Generally the journal will only publish studies on these if the subjects are patients (not healthy people, unless the data collection tool is for use with healthy people).
❖ Qualitative, usually providing data on the content of treatment or experience of rehabilitation and disabling illnesses.
Reviews
The journal gives high priority to two types of review (see below), but does not generally publish ‘simple’ reviews. The reviews preferred are:
❖ Systematic reviews of published evidence, including Cochrane reviews. These may be longer than the stated preferred word count.
❖ ‘Position’ reviews that draw upon published information in a systematic way but use it to develop and support a personal hypothesis or point of view. The position, or view being advocated should be challenging in some way; we are looking for something to challenge the routine and orthodox.
Papers espousing a specific point of view (position reviews) should have a summary that makes explicit the diversity of opinion that exists and the opinion of the authors, and it should also explain how the authors have collated their evidence in support of their point of view. The main article should then expand on the logical arguments and evidence base.
It is not possible to dictate or suggest a specific layout or structure for a position review. However the article will be judged against criteria such as:
❖ Clarity of writing and lay-out (use tables and figures if necessary)
❖ Logical coherence, and use of evidence
❖ How reasonable and sensible it is; dangerous or irrational ideas are unlikely to be published!
Rehabilitation in practice
Clinical Rehabilitation started a new type of article in the journal in 2006, entitled Rehabilitation in Practice. The aim is to publish articles that focus on clinical practice and the use of evidence to improve clinical practice. The articles may take many forms but in general they will be between 2000 and 4000 words (no rigid limit applies). [For further information, see the editorial in Clinical Rehabilitation 2006;20:93-96]
The primary intention is that articles should in some way synthesise or use available evidence to improve the way that rehabilitation is undertaken in practice (i.e. outside the research context). This will require considerable judgement and expertise on the part of the authors, and the journal (i.e. the editor) recognises that ultimately advice given and conclusions drawn are a matter of opinion. Nonetheless articles should adhere as far as possible to the core principles of Clinical Rehabilitation:
• being based on evidence wherever possible;
• avoiding hidden bias; being rational and coherent;
• being relevant to a wide, general readership; and
• being practically useful.
There may be several different sub-types, but authors should not worry unduly about these. Please contact the editor if you wish to discuss your idea.
Reports on translating evidence into practice (audit+)
Papers reporting on the translation of some evidence-based practice into routine clinical use, and an audit of the structures and/or processes and/or outcomes associated with this will be welcome.
The paper should have the usual format. It should outline, in the introduction, the evidence being used. The methodology used to collect data and compare against some standard should be described as usual (and should be scientifically sound). Within the method section there should be a description of the service/treatment or whatever is being audited. This may be given as an Appendix. There should then be results and discussion as usual.
Educational and ‘how to do it’ articles; protocols, care-pathways etc
Systematic reviews and research projects can only focus on a limited part of the totality of rehabilitation at any one time. Consequently there are few opportunities to publish articles about, or to read about, care pathways and protocols that cover the overall management of some problem or situation.
Educational papers are likely to start with some reasonably common clinical situation and, using the available evidence, put forward a system for managing it. These may be care pathways, algorithms, protocols etc.
The structure and layout cannot be dictated but the article will be judged against criteria such as:
❖ The appropriate use of evidence (while it is not necessary to review and give evidence for every step, the article should reference any systematic reviews and other data sources used, and the article will be reviewed to check on the evidence)
❖ The applicability of the system in different settings (the protocol should be made as generic as possible; refer to a specialist multi-disciplinary out-patient clinic and not to the specific clinic you run!)
❖ The importance of the topic (this is relative, and does not preclude pathways for rare problems if they are well constructed)
❖ Clarity and lay-out; simple figures or protocols that can be copied and used will be a strong point.
Reports on development and/or content of services, treatments, data collection tools etc
This type of report will only be accepted if of significant importance and very well presented. Generally research reports should contain details about the development of and/or content of and/or justification for the intervention or data collection tool being researched. Sometimes a separate report may be justified, especially when the development fails; publication of experiments that fail may help others to avoid failing.
These papers should also have a reasonably standard lay-out with an introduction setting the scene. However the methods and results may include how the development was run, and the results of the development.
It is important that the report covers a topic of reasonably widespread interest and it is vital not to concentrate only on factors of local relevance (local to the city, or to the country or health care system concerned).
Other
The journal is also interested in and will publish:
❖ case reports, but only if they are well studied/documented and if the message is of great importance/relevance to the practice of rehabilitation. These are subject to peer review. In practice few case reports are of sufficient importance to allow publication. [Note: single case studies are entirely different. They are well conducted research experiments.]
❖ letters commenting on recently published articles or topical issues. The authors of the original are given an opportunity to read the letter and write a response, if appropriate. The editor will usually select letters without review. [See separate guidance on this topic.]
❖ Omniana, short (100-300 words) pieces that encapsulate something important or interesting; amusement alone will rarely be a sufficient characteristic. The editor chooses these without review. [For further information see the editorial in Clinical Rehabilitation 2006;20: issue 12.]
Derick Wade
Editor.
November 11th 2006
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