About Pediatric Rheumatology

What is Pediatric Rheumatology?

Pediatric Rheumatology is an open access, peer-reviewed, online journal encompassing all aspects of clinical and basic research related to pediatric rheumatology and allied subjects.

Pediatric rheumatology is a pediatric subspecialty for evaluation and treatment of non-surgical musculoskeletal syndromes and diseases in children and adolescents, particularly autoimmune and rheumatic diseases.

The journal’s scope of diseases and syndromes include musculoskeletal pain syndromes, rheumatic fever and post-streptococcal syndromes, juvenile idiopathic arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, juvenile dermatomyositis, local and systemic scleroderma, Kawasaki disease, Henoch-Schonlein purpura and other vasculitides, sarcoidosis, inherited musculoskeletal syndromes, autoinflammatory syndromes, and others. Pediatric Rheumatology encourages submissions on educational advances, drug studies, laboratory and radiological evaluations, and outcome measures.

Pediatric Rheumatology began publishing as Pediatric Rheumatology Online Journal in 2003. Nationwide Children's Hospital/Ohio State University is providing financial assistance to support the journal’s important contribution to the field of pediatric rheumatology. Authors who would like to request assistance with article processing charges are encouraged to contact Dr Charles Spencer.

Content overview

Pediatric Rheumatology considers the following types of articles:

• Research: reports of data from original research.
• Reviews: comprehensive, authoritative, descriptions of any subject within the scope of the journal. These articles are usually written by opinion leaders that have been invited by the Editorial Board.
• Commentaries: short, focused and opinionated articles on any subject within the scope of the journal. These articles are usually related to a contemporary issue, such as recent research findings, and are often written by opinion leaders.
• Hypotheses: short articles presenting an untested original hypothesis backed solely by previously published results rather than any new evidence.
• Short reports: brief reports of data from original research.
• Case reports: reports of clinical cases that can be educational, describe a diagnostic or therapeutic dilemma, suggest an association, or present an important adverse reaction.
• Letters: these can take three forms: a substantial re-analysis of a previously published article, or a substantial response to such a re-analysis from the authors of the original publication, or an article that may not cover 'standard research' but that may be relevant to readers.

Peer review policies

Contributors to Pediatric Rheumatology benefit from fast and professional peer review. After an initial screening for general suitability, the Editors will assign submissions for external peer review. The journal will operate a 'closed' peer-review policy, and will aim to reach a first decision within four weeks.

Edited by Alberto Martini and Charles Spencer, Pediatric Rheumatology is supported by an international Editorial Board.

Publishing in Pediatric Rheumatology

All articles will be listed in PubMed immediately upon acceptance (after peer review), and will be covered by PubMed Central and Scopus.

Articles in Pediatric Rheumatology should be cited in the same way as articles in a traditional journal. However, because articles in this journal are not printed, they do not have page numbers. Instead, they have a unique article number.

The following citation:

Pediatr Rheumatol 2004, 2:1

refers to article 1 from volume 2 of the journal.

As an online journal, Pediatric Rheumatology does not have issue numbers. Each volume corresponds to a calendar year.

To keep up to date with the latest articles from Pediatric Rheumatology, why not register to receive alerts? Registration also enables you to customise your subject areas of interest, store your searches, and submit your manuscripts.

Submission of manuscripts

Manuscripts should be submitted electronically to Pediatric Rheumatology using the online submission system. Full details of how to submit a manuscript are given in the instructions for authors.

General journal policies

Pediatric Rheumatology is published by BioMed Central, an independent publisher committed to ensuring peer-reviewed biomedical research is Open Access. That means it is freely and universally accessible online, it is archived in at least one internationally recognised free access repository, and its authors retain copyright, allowing anyone to reproduce or disseminate articles, according to the BioMed Central copyright and licence agreement. Pediatric Rheumatology however, has taken this further by making all its content Open Access.

Pediatric Rheumatology's articles are archived in PubMed Central, the US National Library of Medicine's full-text repository of life science literature, and also in repositories at the University of Potsdam in Germany, at INIST in France and in e-Depot, the National Library of the Netherlands' digital archive of all electronic publications. The journal is also participating in the British Library's e-journals pilot project, and plans to deposit copies of all articles with the British Library.

BioMed Central is working closely with the Thomson Reuters (ISI) to ensure that citation analysis of articles published in Pediatric Rheumatology will be available.

Pediatric Rheumatology is able to deliver summaries of frequently updated content via Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds. These are accessible via the orange "XML" button at the top of the list of recent articles or the list of most accessed articles. For more information about RSS feeds see our publisher's website.

For further information about general policies please see the instructions for authors.