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Publication Policies

Contents

Who Can Submit?

Anyone may submit an original manuscript to be considered for publication in Patient Experience Journal provided he or she owns the copyright to the work being submitted or is authorized by the copyright owner or owners to submit the manuscript. Authors are the initial owners of the copyrights to their works before publication (an exception in the non-academic world to this might exist if the authors have, as a condition of employment, agreed to transfer copyright to their employer).

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General Submission Rules

Submitted articles cannot have been previously published, nor be forthcoming in an archival journal or book (print or electronic). In addition, by submitting material to Patient Experience Journal, the author is stipulating that the material is not currently under review at another journal (electronic or print) and that he or she will not submit the material to another journal (electronic or print) until the completion of the editorial decision process at Patient Experience Journal. If you have concerns or questions about the submission terms for PXJ, please contact us directly at:

Also, prior to articles being moved to review, a Submission Agreement must be attached to the submission. You can access that document here. Upon acceptance, a formal publication agreement will be requested from the author(s).

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Fees/Article Processing Charges

As an open access, peer reviewed journal Patient Experience Journal (PXJ) follows the full transparency standards set forth by the Directory of Open Access Journals (https://doaj.org/bestpractice). While many open access journals do charge administrative or publication fees, PXJ has no associated fees connected to submission and/or publication and no article processing charges (APCs).

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Rights of Authors and Patient Experience Journal

As further described in both our online Submission Agreement (the Submission Agreement) and formal Publication Agreement, in order to better manage the rights associated with an Article, and to provide optimal access to it, we maintain authors hold the copyright to their Article, but grant the Journal appropriate rights to use the Article for the benefit of the scholarly community. The Author(s) hereby grants Patient Experience Journal the authority to publish the Article with a Creative Commons “Attribution, Non-Commercial, No Derivatives” (CC BY NC ND 4.0) license. (See the Creative Commons website - www.creativecommons.org - for further information.) The author also has the right to deposit versions of their work in an institutional or other repository of their choice. The parties believe that this arrangement will properly serve our shared interest in reaching the largest readership possible.

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Attribution and Usage Policies

As further described in the Submission and Publication agreement, the Author hereby licenses to the Journal the irrevocable, nonexclusive, and royalty-free rights. The Journal may publish the Article in any format, including electronic and print media. Specifically, this license includes the right to reproduce, publicly distribute and display, and transmit the Article or portions thereof in any manner, through any medium now in existence or developed in the future, including but not limited to print, electronic, and digital media, computerized retrieval systems, and other formats.

Any uses of the article by the author, or of any work based substantially on the Article, shall include an appropriate citation to the Article, stating that it has been or is to be published in Patient Experience Journal, with name and date of the Journal publication and the Internet address for the website of the Journal.

People seeking an exception, or who have questions about use, should reach out to PXJ directly at:

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Authorship and Acknowledgements

Authorship

The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors are included in the paper, have seen and approved the final version of the paper, and have agreed to its submission for publication. Only those who have made significant contributions, (i.e., have drafted or written, substantially revised, or critically reviewed the article) should be listed as co-authors. Others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project should be acknowledged or listed as contributors, not authors. The PXJ Editorial Team reserves the right to address authorship of manuscripts submitted with extensive author lists. These submissions may be returned for confirmation that all authors meet the criteria noted below.

Authors listed in an article must meet all of the following criteria:

  • Made a significant contribution to the work reported, whether that’s in the conception, study design, execution, acquisition of data, analysis, and interpretation, or in all these areas.
  • Have drafted or written, substantially revised, or critically reviewed the article.
  • Have agreed on the journal to which the article will be submitted.
  • Reviewed and agreed on all versions of the article before submission, during revision, the final version accepted for publication, and any significant changes introduced at the proofing stage.
  • Agree to take responsibility and be accountable for the contents of the article and to share the responsibility to resolve any questions raised about the accuracy or integrity of the published work.

    • Participation solely in the acquisition of funding or the collection of data does not justify authorship. General supervision of the research group is not sufficient for authorship. Each contributor should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content of the manuscript. All others not meeting author requirements can be included in formal acknowledgements.

    Any changes in authorship before or after publication must be agreed upon by all authors, including those being added or removed. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to obtain confirmation from all co-authors and to provide a full explanation about why the change was necessary. If a change in authorship is necessary after the publication of the article, this will be amended via a post-publication notice. Any changes in authorship must comply with our criteria for authorship, and requests for significant changes to the authorship list after the article has been accepted may be rejected if clear reasons and evidence of author contributions cannot be provided.

    Acknowledgments

    Individuals who participated in the development of a manuscript but do not qualify as an author should be acknowledged. Organizations that provided support in terms of funding and/or other resources should also be acknowledged.

    Any assistance from AI tools for content generation (e.g. large language models) and other similar types of technical tools which generate article content, must be clearly acknowledged within the article. It is the responsibility of authors to ensure the validity, originality, and integrity of their article content. Authors are expected to use these types of tools responsibly and in accordance with our editorial policies on authorship and ethics standards.

    Affiliations

    Authors must list all relevant affiliations to attribute where the research was approved and/or supported and/or conducted. For non-research articles, authors must list their current institutional affiliation. In cases where an author has moved to a different institution before the article has been published, they should list the affiliation where the work was conducted, and the current affiliation and contact details should be listed in the acknowledgment section. Change of affiliation alone is not a valid reason to remove an author from a publication if he or she meets the authorship criteria.

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    Citations, Consent, and Confidentiality

    Citations

    Research and non-research articles must cite relevant, timely, and verified literature (peer-reviewed, where appropriate) to support any claims made in the article. You must avoid excessive and inappropriate self-citation or prearrangements among author groups to inappropriately cite each other’s work, as this can be considered a form of misconduct called citation manipulation. See the COPE guidance on citation manipulation.

    If you’re the author of a non-research article (e.g. a Review or Opinion) you should ensure the references you cite are relevant and provide a fair and balanced overview of the current state of research or scholarly work on the topic. Your references should not be unfairly biased toward a particular research group, organization, or journal. If you are unsure about whether to cite a source you should contact the journal editor for advice.

    Consent for Publication

    For all manuscripts that include details or images relating to an individual person, written informed consent for the publication of these details must be obtained from that person (or their parent or legal guardian in the case of children under 18). The consent must be for publication of their details under the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (such that they will be freely available on the internet). The manuscript must include a statement that written informed consent for publication was obtained.

    Images and figures

    Images and figures should only be used in a manuscript if they are relevant and valuable to the work reported. Authors are asked to refrain from adding content of this type which is purely illustrative and does not add value to the scholarly work. Authors must obtain the necessary written permission to include material in your article that is owned and held in copyright by a third party, including – but not limited to – any proprietary text, illustration, table, or other material, including data, audio, video, film stills, screenshots, musical notation, and any supplemental material.

    Confidentiality

    A submitted manuscript is a confidential material. Academic Journals will not disclose submitted manuscripts to anyone except individuals who partake in the processing and preparation of the manuscript for publication (if accepted). These individuals include editorial staff, corresponding authors, potential reviewers, actual reviewers, and editors. However, in suspected cases of misconduct, a manuscript may be review by the journal’s ethics review team and revealed to institutions/organizations that may require it for the resolution of the misconduct. PXJ shall follow the appropriate COPE flowcharts wherever necessary.

    Data Integrity

    Where deliberate action has been taken to inappropriately manipulate or fabricate data. This is considered a serious form of misconduct and is designed to mislead others and damage the integrity of the scholarly record with wide-reaching and long-term consequences. When submitting a manuscript to the journal, authors must ensure all data contained within their manuscript is accurate and correctly represents their work. To help assist the journal with manuscript evaluation, authors are expected to retain all raw data represented in their manuscripts. If the original data cannot be produced on request, acceptance of a manuscript or published paper may be declined or retracted.

    Standards of reporting

    Research should be communicated in a way that supports verification and reproducibility, and as such, we encourage authors to provide comprehensive descriptions of their research rationale, protocol, methodology, and analysis.

    Use of third-party material

    Authors must obtain the necessary permission to reuse third-party material in the article. The use of short extracts of text and some other types of material is usually permitted, on a limited basis, for the purposes of criticism and review without securing formal permission. If authors wish to include any material in their paper for which they do not hold copyright, and which is not covered by this informal agreement, they will need to obtain written permission from the copyright owner prior to submission.

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    Conduct of Authors

    Misconduct

    The journal takes all forms of misconduct seriously and will take all necessary action, in accordance with Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines, to protect the integrity of the scholarly record. Examples of misconduct include, but are not limited to, affiliation misrepresentation, breaches in copyright/use of third-party material without appropriate permissions, citation manipulation. duplicate submissions/publications, breach of PXJ’s ethics standards, plagiarism, etc.

    Duplicate submission/publication

    Authors are required to declare upon submission that the manuscript is not under consideration elsewhere, and as such the detection of a duplicate submission or publication is typically considered to be a deliberate act. This includes articles previously published in another language. For acceptable forms of secondary submissions or publications (e.g. an article translated into English), in accordance with ICMJE guidance , authors must seek permission from the publisher and copyright holder of the original article and must inform the Editor of the receiving journal about the history of the original article. It must also be made clear to readers that the article is a translated version, with a citation provided to the original article.

    Plagiarism

    The journal has a strict policy against plagiarism, where the journal does not tolerate using others’ ideas, words, or work without acknowledgment. Submissions containing plagiarism in whole or part, duplicate and redundant publication, or self-plagiarism (same or a different language), will be rejected. The corresponding author is responsible for the manuscript through and after the evaluation and publication process with the authority to act on behalf of all co-authors. All submitted manuscripts are checked for plagiarism using professional plagiarism-checking software. Submitted manuscripts with an unacceptable similarity index resulting from plagiarism are rejected immediately.

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    Conflicts of Interest

    Authors

    When authors submit a manuscript of any type or format they are responsible for disclosing all financial and personal relationships that might bias or be seen to bias their work directly via the cover letter with their submission. A discovery of a conflict could results in the rejection of a submission or removal of an article.

    Peer Reviewers

    Reviewers are asked to consider if they have conflicts of interest that could complicate their review. Reviewers must disclose to editors any conflicts of interest that could bias their opinions of the manuscript, and should recuse themselves from reviewing specific manuscripts if the potential for bias exists. Reviewers must not use knowledge of the work they’re reviewing before its publication to further their own interests.

    Editorial Staff

    Editors who make final decisions about manuscripts will recuse themselves from editorial decisions if they have conflicts of interest or relationships that pose potential conflicts related to articles under consideration. Other editorial staff members who participate in editorial decisions will provide editors with a current description of their financial interests or other conflicts (as they might relate to editorial judgments) and recuse themselves from any decisions in which a conflict of interest exists. Editorial staff must not use information gained through working with manuscripts for private gain. Editors should publish regular disclosure statements about potential conflicts of interests related to the commitments of journal staff. Guest editors will be asked to follow these same procedures.

    Confidentiality

    Manuscripts submitted are privileged communications that are authors’ private, confidential property, and authors may be harmed by premature disclosure of any or all of a manuscript’s details. Editors will not share information about manuscripts, including whether they have been received and are under review, their content and status in the review process, criticism by reviewers, and their ultimate fate, to anyone other than the authors and reviewers. Requests from third parties to use manuscripts and reviews for legal proceedings should be politely refused, and editors should do their best not to provide such confidential material should it be subpoenaed.

    Editors will also make clear that reviewers should keep manuscripts, associated material, and the information they contain strictly confidential. Reviewers and editorial staff members must not publicly discuss the authors’ work, and reviewers must not appropriate authors’ ideas before the manuscript is published. Reviewers must not retain the manuscript for their personal use and should destroy paper copies of manuscripts and delete electronic copies after submitting their reviews.

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    Corrections and Appeals

    Corrections, Expressions of Concern, and Retractions

    Sometimes after an article has been published it may be necessary to make a change to the published article. This will be done after careful consideration by the Editor to ensure any necessary changes are done in accordance with guidance from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

    Any necessary changes will be accompanied by a post-publication notice which will be permanently linked to the original article. This can be in the form of a Correction notice, an Expression of Concern, a Retraction, and in rare circumstances a Removal. The purpose of this mechanism of making changes that are permanent and transparent is to ensure the integrity of the scholarly record.

    Appeals and Complaints

    The journal follows the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines on appeals to journal editor decisions and complaints about a journal’s editorial management of the peer review process. We welcome genuine appeals to editor decisions. However, you will need to provide strong evidence or new data/information in response to the editor’s and reviewers’ comments.

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    Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

    Authors who incorporate AI and AI-assisted technologies into their writing process should do so with the intention of enhancing readability and language, rather than substituting essential authoring tasks such as generating scientific, pedagogic, or medical insights, drawing scientific conclusions, or offering clinical recommendations. The application of this technology should always be under human oversight and control, and all work should be subjected to careful review and editing. Authors must openly disclose their use of AI and AI-assisted technologies in their manuscripts, and a statement to this effect should be included in the published work. Such transparency fosters trust among authors, readers, reviewers, editors, and contributors and ensures compliance with the terms of use for the relevant tools or technologies. Authors should refrain from attributing authorship to AI or listing AI as a co-author. Authorship entails responsibilities and tasks that can only be fulfilled by humans. Each author is responsible for addressing inquiries regarding the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work and for approving the final version of the work and consenting to its submission.

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    Statement on Human Research

    When reporting experiments on people, authors should indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national), or if no formal ethics committee is available, with the Helsinki Declaration as revised in 2008. If doubt exists whether the research was conducted in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration, the authors must explain the rationale for their approach and demonstrate that the institutional review body explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study.

    Patients have a right to privacy that should not be violated without informed consent. Identifying information, including names, initials, or hospital numbers, should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, or pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian) gives written informed consent for publication. When informed consent has been obtained, it should be indicated in the published article.

    PXJ's ethics requirements for authors, editors, and reviewers can be found in our full ethics statement and standards

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    Funding and Sponsorship

    Funding

    The journal requires that authors declare all the sources of funding including financial support in their manuscript. The authors should describe the role of the sponsor(s), if any, in any of the stages from study design to submission of the manuscript for publication. They should also state if the sponsor(s) had no such involvement. Please ensure that this information is accurate and in accordance with your funder’s requirements.

    Sponsorship of clinical trials

    Authors employed by pharmaceutical companies or other organizations which sponsor clinical trials must declare this as a competing interest. Authors should adhere to the Good Publication Practice guidelines for pharmaceutical companies (GPP3) , which guides to ensure responsible and ethical standards are maintained.

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    Sponsorship/Advertising Policy

    Patient Experience Journal accepts sponsorship and banner advertising for its website according to the following principles:

    • Advertising is separate from content. Advertisers and sponsors have no advance knowledge of our editorial content, nor do the editors have advance knowledge of advertisers. Content is never altered, added, or deleted to accommodate advertising. Advertisers and sponsors have no input regarding any of our editorial decisions or advertising policies. The advertising sales representatives have neither control over, nor prior knowledge of, specific editorial content before it is published. Patient Experience Journal reserves the right to decline or cancel any advertisement at any time.
    • Advertising must be factual and in good taste in the judgment of Patient Experience Journal editorial staff. Please note: Readers who click on an advertising banner or other advertising link may connect to a site different from Patient Experience Journal to view additional information. Such sites may also ask visitors for additional data. Patient Experience Journal does not participate in, nor control such sites.
    • Third-party advertisements on the Patient Experience Journal site may not include any Patient Experience Journal publication name, logo, or title.
    • Advertised products must be compliant with the regulations in the country where the advertisement will be seen. Advertisements for pharmaceutical products (including new drug applications) that are subject to U.S. Food and Drug Administration oversight must comply with FDA regulations regarding advertising and promotion.
    • Users will be able to distinguish advertising and editorial content clearly on the website.
    • Patient Experience Journal does not endorse any company, product, or service appearing in its advertising.
    • Updates to our Internet advertising policy will be posted to this website.

      • To inquire about sponsorship or advertising in Patient Experience Journal please contact

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      General Terms and Conditions of Use

      Users of the Patient Experience Journal website and/or software agree not to misuse the Patient Experience Journal service or software in any way.

      The failure of Patient Experience Journal to exercise or enforce any right or provision in the policies or the Submission Agreement does not constitute a waiver of such right or provision. If any term of the Submission Agreement or these policies is found to be invalid, the parties nevertheless agree that the court should endeavor to give effect to the parties' intentions as reflected in the provision, and the other provisions of the Submission Agreement and these policies remain in full force and effect. These policies and the Submission Agreement constitute the entire agreement between Patient Experience Journal and the Author(s) regarding submission of the Article. A formal Publication Agreement will be requested upon acceptance.

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