Psychiatric Research and Clinical Practice

Editorial Board

Editor-in-Chief

Kimberly Yonkers, M.D., University of Massachusetts Medical School/U Mass Memorial Medical Center, Worcester, Mass.

Dr. Yonkers is Katz Family Chair, Department of Psychiatry, University of Massachusetts Medical School/U Mass Memorial Medical Center. She brings to the task of editing APA’s newest journal a broad and deep experience in research and clinical work. Her research includes investigations into the clinical course, etiopathology, and treatment of psychiatric disorders as they occur in women. A major component of this work includes investigations into the occurrence and treatment of illnesses in pregnancy and the postpartum period and across the menstrual cycle. This area, by its nature, cuts across disciplines and requires psychiatric expertise as well as knowledge in neuroscience and reproductive biology. Her work has also included determining optimal methods for screening and treating women for substance use problems when they are pregnant or postpartum.

In this video, Dr. Yonkers explains her vision for the journal.

Associate Editors

David L. Fogelson, M.D., University of California, Los Angeles

Dr. Fogelson is a graduate of Harvard Medical School and completed his psychiatry residency at UCLA. He then did a fellowship in psychopharmacology at McLean Hospital. He has been on faculty at UCLA since 1982, where he is now a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and a lecturer to the residents in their advanced psychopharmacology seminar. He was the medical director of the UCLA family study of schizophrenia. For over 30 years he has led a monthly journal club for the UCLA Clinical Research Faculty. He has a busy private practice in which he has seen over 10,000 patients, with well over 1000 having been bipolar. In his private practice he specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of psychoses, mood disorders, and anxiety disorders. He is an expert psychopharmacologist and also offers “eclectic” psychotherapy. He is an advocate of theory of mind and mentalization-based psychotherapy. 

Ariadna Forray, M.D., Yale New Haven Hospital, New Haven, Conn.

Dr. Forray is a psychiatrist who treats medical and surgical patients at Yale New Haven Hospital who have psychiatric needs. She specializes in psychiatric and substance-use disorders in unique and complex patient populations that include pregnant and postpartum women, and adults living with sickle cell disease. One of the few psychiatrists in the U.S. with expertise in mental health issues in patients with sickle cell disease, Dr. Forray was recruited in 2012 as the psychiatry director of a newly developed, interdisciplinary Yale Medicine Adult Sickle Cell Program, which successfully transitioned care from high-cost inpatient and emergency care to integrated outpatient services and led to improved care and services. Dr. Forray also has a keen interest in mental health in women across the reproductive lifespan, which she says was inspired by an experience during her residency, when a patient was transferred to the ICU following an intentional overdose. The case inspired her to learn more about why only some postpartum women develop mental health issues, what role hormones might play, and how such struggles might impact a newborn infant. In addition, Dr. Forray is the director of the Center for Well-being of Women and Mothers, a reproductive psychiatry research program at Yale, where she studies novel treatments for perinatal substance use. She is currently working on a study that is evaluating two models to help obstetrical providers deliver substance-use treatment to pregnant women with an opioid use disorder across 12 sites in Connecticut and Massachusetts.

Amir Garakani, M.D., Greenwich Hospital, Greenwich, Conn.

Dr. Garakani is Chair of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health at Greenwich Hospital in Greenwich, CT. He was formerly Director of Education and an Attending Staff Psychiatrist in the Transitional Living Program at Silver Hill Hospital in New Canaan, CT. He is Board-Certified in Psychiatry, Forensic Psychiatry and Addiction Medicine. He received his B.A. in Classics (Latin), cum laude, with Distinction in All Subjects, from Cornell University, in Ithaca, NY, and his M.D. from the SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, NY, where he won the AMA Rock Sleyster Scholarship. He completed his psychiatry residency at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York, NY, and a research fellowship at the Mood and Anxiety Disorders Program at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Dr. Garakani also completed a fellowship in Forensic Psychiatry at New York University Medical Center. He has won several awards including the American Psychiatric Association (APA)/Lilly Resident Research Award, APA – NY County District Branch Resident Research Award, and travel awards from the Anxiety Disorders Association of America and Society of Biological Psychiatry. He also was an APA/GlaxoSmithKline Leadership Fellow and a Fellow of the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry. He has participated in NIMH-funded research and is first or co-author on over 80 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters. He has taught classes to Mount Sinai medical students and residents on psychopharmacology, phenomenology, neuroscience and forensic psychiatry, and supervised psychiatry residents and medical students. He previously was elected to the Executive Council of the APA NY County District Branch. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and a Member of the American College of Psychiatrists. He is also a member of the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry. He is also on the editorial board as a Clinical Case Discussion Editor for the Journal of Psychiatric Practice and an Associate Editor for Frontiers in Psychiatry - Psychopharmacology.

Robert H. Howland, M.D., University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, Pa.

Dr. Howland is Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine; staff psychiatrist at the UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Research Associate at the VA Pittsburgh HealthCare System. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in Biomedical Engineering from Boston University; graduated from the University of Minnesota School of Medicine; and completed his residency training in general psychiatry and a Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh. He is board-certified in general adult psychiatry and geriatric psychiatry. Dr. Howland is Co-Editor-in-Chief for the peer-reviewed journal Patient Related Outcome Measures; is an Associate Editor for the peer-reviewed journals Frontiers in Psychiatry: Psychopharmacology and Frontiers in Psychiatry: Psychological Therapy and Psychosomatics; and serves as Newsletter Editor for the Newsletter of the Society of Biological Psychiatry. He has authored or coauthored more than 300 peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and other publications, and has been an investigator on numerous funded clinical research studies. Dr. Howland is a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. His clinical and research interests have included the use of psychopharmacology, psychotherapy, neurostimulation therapies, and other novel therapies in the treatment of mood disorders, with a particular emphasis on chronic and treatment resistant forms of depression. In addition to his clinical, research and teaching activities at the University of Pittsburgh, he also has worked part-time in various community mental health programs throughout Western Pennsylvania. 

Katharine A. Phillips, M.D., Weill Cornell Medical College, Cornell University, New York

Dr. Phillips is Professor of Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College and an Attending Psychiatrist at New York-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. She is also Residency Research Director for the Department of Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College. In addition, she is Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at the Alpert Medical School of Brown University. Dr. Phillips is internationally recognized for her pioneering research studies and clinical expertise in body dysmorphic disorder as well as other obsessive-compulsive and related disorders. Her research studies on body dysmorphic disorder were continuously funded by the National Institute of Mental Health for more than 20 years. Dr. Phillips has received numerous honors and awards for her research, research mentoring, and other academic accomplishments, including a Special Presidential Commendation from the American Psychiatric Association for her research accomplishments. Dr. Phillips has more than 320 publications (scientific articles, book chapters, letters) and has authored or edited 11 books. She has given more than 550 presentations in the United States and abroad. She is on the scientific advisory boards of the American Society of Clinical Psychopharmacology, the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, and the International OCD Foundation. She is on the Board of Directors of The Canadian Institute for Obsessive Compulsive Disorders. She also serves on a number of editorial boards. From 2007 to 2013, Dr. Phillips was Chair of the DSM-5 Work Group on Anxiety, Obsessive-Compulsive Spectrum, Post-Traumatic, and Dissociative Disorders and a member of the DSM-5 Task Force; she is currently a member of the DSM Review Committee for Internalizing Disorders. From 2002 to 2006, she chaired the National Institute of Mental Health’s Interventions Research Review Committee (Scientific Review Group). Dr. Phillips is a Fellow of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, a member of the American College of Psychiatrists, and a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. She has repeatedly been included in Best Doctors in America, Castle Connolly’s America’s Top Doctors, Who’s Who in America, and Who’s Who in the World.

Adrian Preda, M.D., DFAPA, University of California, Irvine, School of Medicine, Irvine, Calif.

Dr. Preda is a professor of clinical psychiatry and human behavior at the University of California, Irvine, School of Medicine, and recently was named Editor in Chief of Psychiatric News. An academic psychiatrist, Preda attended the Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Bucharest, Romania, and completed his residency at Yale University School of Medicine. He served as chief resident in psychiatry at Yale before joining the Yale School of Medicine faculty as an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry. During his time at Yale, Dr. Preda conducted research on prodromal schizophrenia, diffusion tensor MRI and rTMS. Following Yale, Dr. Preda took on several roles with the UT Southwestern and the VA North Texas Health Care System in Dallas, including medical director of mental health triage and the Director of National Clozapine Center. He has been at the University of California, Irvine, School of Medicine since 2006 and has served in multiple positions at the institution, including director of residency training in psychiatry and vice chair of education in psychiatry and human behavior. His research at UC Irvine has been focused on the use of brain imaging and genetic biomarkers to improve validation of clinical trial outcomes in schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s dementia. Focusing his career on research and academia, Preda published studies in numerous journals. He received a NARSAD Young Investigator Award and is currently an associate editor of Frontiers in Psychiatry, Frontiers in Neuroscience, and Frontiers in Neuropsychopharmacology. He is section editor of psychiatry of EBSCO’s DynaMed and associate editor of Cochrane Clinical Answers. He is the editor-in-chief of StatPearls’ Geriatric Psychiatry, Consultation Liaison, and Medical Students Psychiatry. He has also written for Psychology Today and PLOS Mind the Brain. Preda is a faculty member of the Faculty of 1000 and an APA Distinguished Fellow.

H. Paul Putman III, M.D., F.A.C.Psych., Austin, Tex.

Dr. Putman earned his BA in Biology at Austin College in Sherman, Texas, and received his MD from the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. He completed his internship and residency in General Psychiatry at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, where he was Chief Resident. He is Board Certified in General Psychiatry by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. A practicing psychiatrist for over thirty years, he has also performed Phase I-IV studies in psychopharmacology, published in peer reviewed journals, served as a supervisor for the Austin Graduate Medical Education/UT Medical Branch Residency Program in Psychiatry, and lectured in the psychiatry departments of University of Texas Houston McGovern School of Medicine and The University of Texas at Austin Dell Medical School. In addition to psychiatry, Dr. Putman has a background in journalism and editing. He has served on the Editorial Board of The Jefferson Journal of Psychiatry and contributes often to Psychiatric News on topics consistent with enhancing scholarly practice. He is currently completing his third book for American Psychiatric Association (APA) Publishing, Reducing Cognitive Errors in Psychiatric Practice. His first, Rational Psychopharmacology: A Book of Clinical Skills (a text on practicing clinical psychopharmacology) was followed by Encountering Treatment Resistance: Solutions through Reconceptualization (which details how practitioners’ concept formation and problem solving approaches determine clinical outcomes). Clinicians represent the anchor leg of translational medicine, and Dr. Putman works to raise the level of clinical practice by reinforcing how a scholarly approach to the scientific literature enhances clinical outcomes for patients. Dr. Putman is a Distinguished Life Fellow of the APA and a Fellow and former Laughlin Fellow of the American College of Psychiatrists (ACP). A past President of the Central (now American) Neuropsychiatric Association, he has served the APA as chair of its Committee of Residents and as an original member of its Committee of Early Career Psychiatrists. He recently served the ACP as chair of its Continuing Education Committee.

Dinesh Sangroula, M.D., Atrium Health-Wake Forest School of Medicine, Charlotte, N.C.

Dr. Sangroula is an American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology (ABPN)-Certified General and Child & Adolescent Psychiatrist. He currently serves as a Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Atrium Health-Wake Forest School of Medicine in Charlotte, North Carolina. His expertise spans the evaluation and treatment of children, adolescents, and young adults with a diverse range of psychiatric conditions including ADHD, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, DMDD, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Mood Disorders, Anxiety Disorders, Psychotic Disorders, and OCD, among others. Originally from Nepal, Dr. Sangroula graduated from Kathmandu University. He began his medical career as a general practitioner in rural areas of Nepal for four years, an experience that fueled his passion for psychiatry. He pursued further training as a research scholar at Northwell Health-Zucker Hillside Hospital, N.Y., specializing in child and adolescent psychiatry. He then completed his psychiatry residency training at Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, N.Y., where he distinguished himself by winning 2nd place and 1st place in the annual New York State Psychiatric Association best resident research paper contest in 2017 and 2018, respectively. Further honing his expertise, Dr. Sangroula completed a fellowship in child and adolescent psychiatry at Geisel School of Medicine-Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, NH, in 2021. In addition to his clinical responsibilities, Dr. Sangroula is actively engaged in teaching medical students and residents, both in clinical settings and through research projects. He leads a two-month psychiatry observership program for international medical graduates at Atrium Health, providing mentorship in both clinical and research endeavors. His research interests encompass a broad spectrum of psychiatric illnesses, with a particular focus on child and adolescent psychiatry. He has authored numerous meta-analyses, systematic reviews, retrospective studies, and case reports published in esteemed peer-reviewed journals.

Susan K. Schultz, M.D., James Haley VA Hospital, Tampa, Fla.

Dr. Schultz is a geriatric psychiatrist on the Mental Health and Behavioral Science Service, James Haley VA Hospital, Tampa. Previously, Dr. Schultz was Director of the Aging Mind and Brain Initiative, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, Vice-Chair for Clinical Translation, and Director of the Iowa Geriatric Education Center. She has been President of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry, is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, and has board qualifications in Geriatric Psychiatry and Psychosomatic Medicine. She serves on NIH study sections, the FDA Psychopharmacologic Drugs Advisory Committee, is a deputy editor for the American Journal of Psychiatry. She also served as the text editor for DSM-5. Her present research involves studying the brain changes seen in Alzheimer’s disease through brain imaging and other biological markers, including pre-symptomatic Alzheimer’s disease. She has conducted PET and MRI neuroimaging research and experimental treatment studies for Alzheimer’s disease through collaboration with the Alzheimer’s Disease Cooperative Study (ADCS).

Sandarsh Surya, M.B.B.S., Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University, Augusta, Ga.

Dr. Surya is Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Health Behavior, Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University. He is a psychiatrist with expertise in geriatric psychiatry and therapeutic brain stimulation. He is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Health Behavior at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University. He received his medical degree from Bangalore, India, his training included Residency in Psychiatry at Augusta University (Chief Resident) and a Fellowship in Geriatric Psychiatry from Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic. His clinical and research interests are geriatric psychiatry and therapeutic brain stimulation in psychiatry. His clinical activities include Medical Director, ECT service, Augusta University Medical Center; Geriatric psychiatry and treatment-resistant depression outpatient clinics, Augusta University Medical Center; and Supervisor for psychiatry residents in outpatient services in schizophrenia and mood disorder clinics. Dr. Surya is a passionate educator and mentor, and he enjoys teaching medical students, residents, and fellows. He is an active member of the American Psychiatric Association and International Society of ECT and Neurostimulation. He has experience designing and conducting clinical trials, in areas like ECT for depression, ECT and clozapine use in serious mental illness. He has published several articles in peer-reviewed journals and presented his research at national and international conferences.

Mission and Editorial Policy

Psychiatric Research and Clinical Practice (PRCP) is committed to keeping the field of psychiatry vibrant and relevant by publishing wide-ranging information on all aspects of mental and behavioral health; building upon the psychiatric knowledge base through features that bring research findings closer to clinical utility; and enhancing APA’s leadership role in scientific publishing in Psychiatry by expanding the amount of research, clinical practice, and systems of care content available to the field.

PRCP articles are published in accordance with open-access principles under a Creative Commons License. There are three possible Creative Commons licenses available to PRCP authors: CC-BY, CC-BY-NC, and CC-BY-NC-ND. The Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY) is the least restrictive of the three; PRCP authors may use this license only if it is specifically required by their funder. This license allows users to copy the article; to create extracts, abstracts, and new works from the article; to alter and revise the article; and to make commercial use of the article (including reuse and/or resale of the article by commercial entities).

If a CC-BY license is not required by the funder, authors may choose between a CC-BY-NC and a CC-BY-NC-ND license. The Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Public License (CC-BY-NC) is identical to the CC-BY license, but does not allow users to make commercial use of the article. The Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Non-Derivative Public License (CC-BY-NC-ND) includes this stipulation on commercial use, and adds one further restriction: if users remix, transform, or build upon the material, they may not distribute that altered material. All three licenses give users these rights with the understanding that they will:

1. give appropriate credit (with a link to the formal publication);
2. provide a link to the license;
3. indicate if changes were made; and
4. indicate that the licensor is not represented as endorsing the subsequent work.

PRCP publishes in accordance with the terms of these licenses through funding from article publication charges paid by authors’ institutions and/or funding agencies, with payment due at article’s acceptance.

The standard article publication charges are $2,500.00 for direct submissions and $2,000.00 for submissions previously reviewed at other titles, provided said reviews are submitted with the manuscript. This leveraging of the value already added to the paper by nature of previous peer review potentially reduces both time to eventual publication and peer-review burden. Article publication charges for Letters to the Editor are reduced to $1,250.00; article publication charges will be waived for Replies.

Guidelines for Authors on Preparing Manuscripts

Author Resources | General Policies | FAQs | Types of Articles | Manuscript Organization and Format | References | Tables | Figures | Supplemental Files | Processing of Accepted Manuscripts | Becoming a Reviewer

General Policies

The requirements stated below are in accordance with the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. See “Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals” (icmje.org).

Prior Publication

Manuscripts are accepted for consideration by Psychiatric Research and Clinical Practice (PRCP) with the understanding that they represent original material, have not been published previously, are not being considered for publication elsewhere, and have been approved by each author. Any form of publication other than an abstract of no more than 400 words constitutes prior publication. This includes components of symposia, proceedings, transactions, books (or chapters), invited articles, or reports of any kind, regardless of differences in readership. (Clinical trial registration does not constitute prior publication and will not preclude consideration for publication in PRCP.)

Authors submitting manuscripts containing data or clinical observations already used in published papers or used in papers that are in press, submitted for publication, or to be submitted shortly should provide this information and copies of those papers to the Editor. An explanation of the differences between the papers should be included.

Public dissemination of manuscripts before submission to this journal, such as posting the manuscript on preprint servers or other repositories, will be considered in the evaluation of whether to enter a paper into formal peer review. The evaluation will involve determining whether ultimate publication will add meaningful new information to the medical literature or will be redundant with information already disseminated with the posting of the preprint. Authors should provide information about any preprint postings, including copies of the posted manuscript and a link to it, at the time of submission of the manuscript to this journal. It is the author’s responsibility to ensure that preprints are amended to point readers to subsequent versions, including the final published article.

Clinical Trial Registration

PRCP requires, as a condition of consideration for publication, registration of clinical trials in a public trials registry. Trials must be registered at or before the onset of patient enrollment. For this purpose, a clinical trial is defined as any research project that prospectively assigns human subjects to intervention or comparison groups to study the cause-and-effect relationship between a medical intervention and a health outcome. Studies designed for other purposes, such as to study pharmacokinetics or major toxicity (for example, phase I trials), would be exempt. PRCP does not advocate one particular registry but requires authors to register their trial in a registry that meets several criteria. The registry must be accessible to the public at no charge. It must be open to all prospective registrants and managed by a not-for-profit organization. There must be a mechanism to ensure the validity of the registration data, and the registry should be electronically searchable.

An acceptable registry must include at minimum the following information: a unique identifying number, a statement of the intervention (or interventions) and comparison (or comparisons) studied, a statement of the study hypothesis, definitions of the primary and secondary outcome measures, eligibility criteria, key trial dates (registration date, anticipated or actual start date, anticipated or actual date of last follow-up, planned or actual date of closure to data entry, and date trial data considered complete), target number of subjects, funding source, and contact information for the principal investigator. To our knowledge, at present, only www.clinicaltrials.gov, sponsored by the United States National Library of Medicine, meets these requirements; there may be other registries, now or in the future, that meet all these requirements. Registration information must be provided in the cover letter at submission.

The clinical trials registration should be included at the end of the abstract. The requirement is that all clinical trials, essentially all phase 2 or later trials in which participants are assigned to one or more treatment arms, either pharmacological or nonpharmacological, have clinical trials registration. Authors are responsible for having obtained registration before enrolling participants that specifies the interventions, subject numbers and type, the primary and secondary outcomes, including assessment instruments and intervals, and statistical analysis of results. If the methods and results as described in the article are not fully consistent with the clinical trials registration, then the methods should describe what differed and why, how, and when the decision was made that resulted in the difference. We recognize that other regulatory bodies, such as sponsors, institutional review boards (IRBs), and data and safety monitoring boards (DSMBs) may change trials, and this fact should be noted. If registration was not obtained prior to the start of the trial, then other evidence, such as IRB or grant documents, should be presented to the Editorial Office to document when parameters of the trial were specified. A description of this evidence should be placed in the Method section.

Authorship

All persons designated as authors should qualify for authorship. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for the content. The corresponding author affirms that he or she had access to all data from the study, both what is reported and what is unreported, and also that he or she had complete freedom to direct its analysis and its reporting, without influence from the sponsors. The corresponding author also affirms that there was no editorial direction or censorship from the sponsors. Preparation of drafts of manuscripts by employees of the sponsor who are not listed as authors is expressly prohibited.

Authorship credit should be based on

1. Substantial contributions to conception and design or analysis and interpretation of data.
2. Substantial contributions to drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content.
3. Final approval of the version to be published.
4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Conditions 1, 2, 3, and 4 must ALL be met. Participation solely in the acquisition of funding or the collection of data does not left authorship. General supervision of the research group is also not sufficient. Any part of an article critical to its main conclusions must be the responsibility of at least one author.

Only those with key responsibility for the material in the article should be listed as authors; others contributing to the work should be recognized in an Acknowledgment.

Use of AI-Assisted Technologies

The American Psychiatric Association has adopted the following policies regarding the use of generative artificial/augmented intelligence (AI) in any manuscript or book submitted for potential publication:

• If a generative AI tool was used at any stage in the creation of a submitted work, both the relevant text of the submitted work and the cover letter or email accompanying the submission must fully identify all details of the AI use (including the tool used and the relevant output)
• Submitted works may not include images produced with generative AI at this time
• Only human persons can be listed as authors of a work (i.e., no AI tool may be identified as author)
• Authors are responsible for all material contained within the submitted work, including any material first produced through the use of generative AI. This comprises responsibility for the accuracy of such material (i.e., confirming that it is not incorrect, incomplete or biased) and for ensuring that all relevant material includes appropriate attribution and does not constitute plagiarism
• Material produced through a generative AI tool may not be cited as a primary source

 Disclosure of Commerical Interests

Disclosure of financial relationships is required at the time of submission and provisional acceptance of all manuscripts. The authors are responsible for informing PRCP of any additional financial relationships that may arise prior to the date of publication of their paper. Financial support for the study must be disclosed, whether from nonprofit or commercial sources. Nonfinancial forms of support, such as drugs, analytic support, or other assistance with preparation of the manuscript, must also be acknowledged. All authors must individually disclose all financial relationships from the previous 36 months, whether or not directly related to the subject of their paper. Such reporting must include all equity ownership, profit-sharing agreements, royalties, patents, and research or other grants from private industry or closely affiliated nonprofit funds. For income from pharmaceutical companies, the purpose must be specified, e.g., speakers bureau honoraria or other CME activity, travel funds, advisory panel payments, or research grants. If an author has no interests to disclose, this must be explicitly stated and will be acknowledged in print as “Dr. X reports no financial relationships with commercial interests.”

The Editors will review all author statements of financial support to determine if there is evidence of bias from these sources. If it appears that there may be, then further review and possible rejection of the manuscript may occur. Authors are encouraged to contact the Editor at any stage in the manuscript review process if they believe that they have relationships that require review.

Publication Forms

On acceptance of a manuscript, the corresponding author and all coauthors will receive an e-mail with a link to the Certification of Authorship and Financial Disclosure forms and instructions for online submission of the forms. Accepted manuscripts will not be scheduled for publication until completed forms have been received.

Permission for Reproducecd Work

In addition, authors must obtain letters of permission from publishers and pay any fees for use of extensive quotations (more than 500 words) or figures that have been previously published or submitted elsewhere.

Open Access Policies

PRCP articles are published in accordance with open-access principles under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License. This license allows users to copy the article; to create extracts, abstracts, and new works from the article; to alter and revise the article; and to make commercial use of the article (including reuse and/or resale of the article by commercial entities), provided the user:

1. gives appropriate credit (with a link to the formal publication);
2. provides a link to the license;
3. indicates if changes were made; and
4. indicates that the licensor is not represented as endorsing the subsequent work.

Patient Anonymity

Ethical and legal considerations require careful attention to the protection of a patient’s anonymity in case reports and elsewhere. Identifying information such as names, initials, hospital numbers, and dates must be avoided. Also, authors must disguise identifying information when discussing patients’ characteristics and personal history.

Informed Consent

Manuscripts and letters to the Editor that report the results of experimental investigation and interviews with human subjects must include a statement that written informed consent was obtained after the procedure(s) had been fully explained. In the case of children, authors are asked to include information about whether the child’s assent was obtained. If your submission does not contain written informed consent or institutional review board approval, it will not be reviewed.

Prior Publication

While recognizing the educational value of case reports, APA Publishing seeks to ensure what it publishes respects an individual’s privacy and protects personal health information. For all submissions wherein an individual is described, we ask at submission for confirmation that the individual has seen the version of the report, that the individual understands it is being submitted for publication consideration, and that the individual has been informed that if published, the report will be freely accessible to anyone 1 year after publication and thus confidentiality cannot be guaranteed despite all efforts to disguise personal details. For disguising, identifying information such as names, initials, hospital numbers, and dates must be avoided. In addition, authors should disguise information about the characteristics and personal history of patients and indicate in the text or in the article notes that they have done so, e.g.: “The authors have confirmed that details of the cases presented have been disguised to protect patient privacy.” When possible, APA Publishing prefers fictionalized composite accounts. Submissions employing this tactic should specify in the text “The case presented is a fictionalized account bringing together disguised characteristics of [number] individuals.

Review Process

All manuscripts receive an initial review by the PRCP Editor to determine the originality, validity, and importance of content and conclusions. Manuscripts with insufficient priority for publication will be rejected promptly. Other manuscripts are sent for peer review. Authors will be sent reviewer comments that are judged to be useful to them. All reviewers remain anonymous.

 Author Name Change

In cases where authors wish to change their name following publication, we will update and republish the paper and redeliver the updated metadata to indexing services. Authors should contact the journal’s Editorial Office with their name change.

Types of Articles

Reviews

Review articles are intended to bring together important information on a topic of general interest to psychiatry. This section is not intended to be a forum for the presentation of new data. Review articles are usually solicited by the Editors, but we will consider unsolicited material. We rarely proceed with Review papers for which the first author is a student and has not contributed to substantive work in the field on his or her own accord. Please contact the editorial office before writing a review article for PRCP. The text is usually within 5,000 words with an abstract of no more than 250 words, a maximum of 5 tables and figures (total), and up to 50 references. Word count includes only the main body of text (i.e., not tables, figures, abstracts, or references). Additional tables or figures can be submitted in a separate file as supplemental data for posting online. (See Supplemental Files for types of data and formats acceptable for posting online.)

Articles

Articles are reports of original work that embody scientific excellence in psychiatric medicine and advances in clinical research. Typically, articles will contain new data derived from a sizable series of patients or participants. The text is usually within 3,500 words, which does not include an abstract of no more than 250 words, a maximum of 5 tables and figures (total), and up to 40 references. Word count includes only the main body of text (i.e., not tables, figures, abstracts, or references). Additional tables can be submitted as a supplemental file for posting online. (See Supplemental Files for types of data and formats acceptable for posting online.)

 Protocol Papers

The editorial team at PRCP welcomes your submissions of methods and research processes. Authors considering submitting a manuscript under this category are advised to consult and follow the SPIRIT statement for clinical trial protocols and the PRISMA-P guidelines for systematic review protocols. For qualitative studies, authors are advised to check SRQR, which is a synthesis of recommendations for reporting qualitative research, and to follow the COREQ checklist for interviews and focus groups. Protocols of randomized controlled trials should follow the CONSORT guidelines, and all Clinical Trials should be registered (as noted above). The registration number should be provided in your manuscript. We cannot consider manuscripts reporting trials that were registered retrospectively. The month and year of obtaining ethical approval should be mentioned in the abstract and main manuscript. Protocols should be written with a view to carrying out the study (i.e., “data collection will involve; data will be analyzed…’) and not as if the study has been completed. Typical lengths for manuscripts of this type are about 5,000 words (excluding references which generally number 40 or fewer) with an abstract of 250 words or less. The Journal will consider longer initial submissions provided that the accompanying cover letter outlines the reasons for doing so and with the understanding that accepted manuscripts may be edited to a length more typical of this manuscript type. Additional flexibility will be considered by the Editor-in-Chief on a case-by-case basis.

Letters to the Editor

Brief letters (maximum of 500 words, including references) will be considered if they include a cover letter indicating that the correspondence is “for publication.” Novel case reports and other noncontrolled observations should be submitted as Letters to the Editor. Case reports will be peer reviewed; authors must provide a list of 4 suggested reviewers and their e-mail addresses. Letters critical of an article published in PRCP must be received within 6 weeks of the article’s publication. Letters received after the deadline will not be considered for publication; those considered will be sent to the article’s corresponding author to reply on behalf of the group, which will represent the final say on the matter. No additional letters discussing an exchange published in the PRCP’s Letters to the Editor will be considered. Such letters must include the title and author of the article and the month and year of publication. Letters that do not meet these specifications will be returned unreviewed. Letters will be published on a space-available basis.

Clinical Case Conferences

Clinical case conferences are disguised accounts of the diagnosis and treatment of individuals who present interesting problems of the nature that typically involve a departmental forum discussion. Following the presentation of the case there should be a brief review of the literature to place the case in hand in context. The text of clinical case conferences is usually within 2,000 words and can have up to 20 references; the submission should lead with the case (i.e., no abstract or introduction).

Viewpoints

Viewpoints may address virtually any important topic in psychiatry and generally are not linked to a specific article. They should be well focused, scholarly, and clearly presented but should not include the findings of new research or data that have not been previously published. Viewpoints may have no more than 3 authors., and the corresponding author should have sufficient expertise and experience with the topic to provide an authoritative opinion. Submissions can be up to 1200 words of text—or 1000 words of text with 1 small table or figure—with 7-10 references that are as current as possible.

Manuscript Organization and Format

All parts of the manuscript, including vignettes, quotations, references, and tables, must be double-spaced. The manuscript should be arranged in the following order, with each item beginning a new page: 1) title page, 2) abstract, 3) text, 4) references, and 5) tables and/or figures. All pages must be numbered.

https://psychiatryonline.org/prcp/prcp_ifora 

Processing of Accepted Manuscripts

Manuscripts are accepted with the understanding that the Editor and the editorial staff have the right to make revisions aimed at greater conciseness, clarity, and conformity with journal style. Preliminary page proofs will be sent to the corresponding author. Authors who will be away from their offices for a long period or who change address after notification of acceptance should inform the journal staff.

Reviewers

Becoming a Reviewer

Individuals interested in reviewing for Psychiatric Research and Clinical Practice should visit ScholarOne Manuscripts and create an account.

Abstracts of articles within a reviewer’s given area of expertise are sent via e-mail to the reviewer. Within 3 days, the reviewer is asked to indicate willingness to review and availability to perform the review within a 2-week time frame.

Competing Interests

Most competing interests, financial or otherwise, do not disqualify one from participating in the peer-review process, but the journal requests that you indicate any conflict that you may have in reviewing any particular manuscript. You can also notify the journal if you feel that you cannot review a manuscript because of a competing interest. This will not affect your reviewer status in any way.

Confidentiality

Manuscripts must be reviewed with due respect for authors’ confidentiality. In submitting their manuscripts for review, authors entrust the journal with the results of their scientific work and creative effort, on which their reputation and career may depend. Authors’ rights may be violated by disclosure of the confidential details of the review of their manuscript. Reviewers should never copy, share, or discuss a manuscript under review or the data within with anyone without expressed written permission of the journal’s Editor and the authors.

Manuscript Submission

Psychiatric Research and Clinical Practice uses a web-based manuscript submission and tracking system from manuscript submission to publication decision. There are no submission fees involved. To submit your paper, review the guidelines below. When you are satisfied that your manuscript meets the editorial and production requirements, please visit the manuscript submission site and either create an account or use your existing account. Then follow the instructions to upload your manuscript. All submissions must include a title page and be accompanied by a cover letter and list of suggested reviewers.

Author Resources

Publishing your article in a journal from American Psychiatric Association Publishing means your article reaches audiences in more than 2,000 U.S. and international institutions, a figure that includes nearly 100% of U.S. medical schools and hospitals. Each year there are around 10 million page views of journal content.

APA Publishing is committed to helping our journal article authors get their work discovered by various audiences. As part of this commitment we offer and partner with a variety of services to ensure both a broad reach and targeted messaging.

Once your article is published, you and your coauthors are sent an online access token to view the article. You are encouraged to promote your work by placing article links within e-mail signatures and on professional and academic networking sites. APA Publishing assists you in further dissemination through the following partnerships:

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