About the Journal
Focus and Scope
The Journal of Physiotherapy Research (JPR), sponsored by BAHIANA - School of Medicine and Public Health is a online publication encompassing papers resulting from original scientific research on physiotherapy and related fields.
The mission of the JPR is to foster physiotherapy both as a profession and as a science domain of evidence based research, promoting the accuracy of the kinetic functional diagnosis, cost-effective practices and innovation through the development of techniques, equipment, procedures and intervention protocols. Therefore, it serves clinical professionals, health service users and providers, members of the academe and regulatory bodies.
Committed to ethics and scientific integrity, it extends the security and quality of its published information and strengthens open science policies.
Indexed at
Peer Review Process
The Journal of Physiotherapy Research (JPR) applies double anonymized reviewing, where both the evaluator and authors remain anonymous throughout the process. Each contribution will be assessed by at least 2 (two) ad hoc reviewers. The outcomes could be: a) approval for publication as presented in the original; b) approval for publication after improvements required by the reviewer have been implemented; c) rejection. The authors will always be informed of the review outcome, and will promptly receive all reviewers' annotations. If the authors decide to carry out the changes suggested by the reviewers, the amended text will be redirected to the same previous evaluators for a new assessment and/or to the assigned editors responsible for that submission
Articles may be submitted in Portuguese or English. Once approved, however, the authors must proceed with the translation to the other language (English or Portuguese). Articles are published simultaneously in both languages.
Open Peer Review Policy: In order to foster critical and in-depth peer review and transparency in the physiotherapy research field, outstanding reviews may be considered for publication after consulting with the referee who authored it and assessment by our editorial board.
In order to be eligible for publication, the review must encompass critical discussion of the reviewed text and appraisal of its evidence (or lack thereof), remarking the quality of the study, its strenghts and limitations and its relevance to the current discussion of its subject among the scientific community. Thus, adding value to the reviewed work and constituting an independent text in itself, the review will be deemed eligible for publication.
Publication Frequency
Until 2021: Quarterly (published in February, May, August and November).
From 2022 on: Submissions accepted for publication by the scientific editors will be made available online as soon as they are copyedited and layout-edited. This process, for each accepted paper, takes up to four weeks. Publication of newly accepted submissions stops in December, when the publishing cycle restarts for the following year's volume.
Open Access Policy
The Journal of Physiotherapy Research does not apply article processing charges whatsoever, being a scientific vehicle with the exclusive aim of fostering the advancement of science.
By submitting an article to this journal, the authors recognize themselves as copyright holders and authorize its free use by readers. The published content herein may be, in addition to being read, downloaded, copied, distributed and printed. The authors retain copyrights, transferring to the Journal of Physiotherapy Research only the right of first publication.
The Journal of Physiotherapy Research adopts the Creative Commons Attribution License, by which all are free to copy and redistribute the published content in any medium or format, to remix it, to transform it and to build knowledge from the aforementioned content for any purpose, including commercial purposes. The users of the content are always required to attribute credit to the original authors.
We recommend authors to deposit the final published version of their articles in institutional repositories, linking to their published paper in the Journal of Physiotherapy Research.
Articles posted in preprint servers may be submitted to the Journal of Physiotherapy Research and they will be considered original nonetheless.
Textual Similarity Screening
In order to enforce the best practices in scientific communications and to prevent copyright infringement, submitted manuscripts are screened with the Similarity Check (iThenticate) before publication.
Screened manuscripts displaying high rates of similarity in the wording of the introduction, discussion and results sections with previously published original content in scientific communication venues with ISBN or ISSN without properly referencing or paraphrasing them will be rejected.
Deposits in institutional repositories and preprint servers do not constitute plagiarism nor self-plagiarism. Research reports developed in academic institutions such as thesis, dissertations and monographs may and should be submitted as scientific papers to journals or considered for publication as chapters in scientific books.
Authorship Policy
This journal adopts the ICMJE recommendations for the definition of authorship roles.
An author of an intellectual production takes public responsibility for its content. An author of a scientific report is someone who participated in the conception and planning of the research project, who created conditions for its development, who agrees with its final wording of the manuscript and who is able to defend its essence before the scientific community.
Authorship is not guaranteed by participation in data collection, research groups and laboratories, loan of materials and equipment, translation nor statistical analyses. The essence of a scientific article lies in the interpretation of the results, in the argumentation and in the conclusions that contribute to the scientific advancement.
Each author must declare their contributions to the research and report, and potential competing interests.
The use of Large Language Models (LLMs) at any stage of the report writing must be duly justified and explained in the Methods section. LLMs, by conceptual definition, cannot constitute scientific authorship. The journal's editors will evaluate the relevance of using the respective tool.
It is prohibited to add or remove authors after the scientific evaluation of the submission has begun.
Those institutions with which the author maintains employment ties for teaching, research activities and/or clinical practice will be considered affiliations.
For those authors who do not have an employment relationship with educational and/or research institutions, the current student relationship at the time of submission can be considered affiliation.
Authors who do not have a student or employment relationship at the time of submission must declare themselves as independent researchers.
Laboratories, research groups and institutions in which the author is a postdoctoral fellow, visiting professor, and/or consultant will not be considered affiliations for the purposes of publication in this journal.
Authorship disputes will be resolved by the journal's editorial committee in accordance with COPE recommendations.
Policy for Submissions by Editorial Board Members: Editorial board members are welcome to submit research reports to be considered for publication after review by unbiased independent peers. However, the journal may limit the number of submissions accepted per editor per year, prioritizing (i) methodologically robust and (ii) socially useful empirical reports and (iii) maintaining low editorial endogeneity.
Versions and Retraction Policy
Suspected scientific misconducts will be assessed by the editorial board. The Journal of Physiotherapy Research will follow the COPE procedures to further investigate any misconduct allegations that may arise.
In case of retraction, the journal shall abide by the ICMJE recommendations.
Corrections of accidental errors - statistical, methodological or otherwise - whenever reported by the authors themselves will be published immediately. Corrections of accidental errors are encouraged.
In any of the aforementioned situations, all versions will be maintained online, properly identified as recommended by the ICMJE and linked in both directions for further assessment by the readers.
Translation Policy
The Journal of Physiotherapy Research publishes its content simultaneously in English and in Brazilian Portuguese. In case of acceptance of the submission, the authors are responsible for the translation of the manuscript to the second idiom in its final version, including biographies, list of author contributions and paragraph with competing interests disclosure.
Policy for Submissions with Audiovisual Files
Techniques, methods and procedures in physiotherapy may be submitted as a supplementary video file, employing password-protected file sharing services such as SendSpace, Google Drive or Dropbox.
The notification informing the sharing of these supplementary files must be informed during the submission process.
The video must be deemed essential to the study design and/or reproducibility of the tests or procedures conducted in the experiment or treatment.
All ethical criteria must have been met prior to the video recording as established in the current applicable legislation.
The consent of the portrayed subjects is essential, as is the protection of the identity and privacy of these subjects. In order to comply with those aspects, the term of use of images and audio for scientific purposes signed by the subjects portrayed must be submitted as an additional file in the respective submission.
The authors should also indicate in the manuscript the location in which the link for the video should be displayed.
The videos will be uploaded in the BAHIANA Journals YouTube channel, linked to the source article and licensed under a Creative Commons 4.0 CC-BY Attribution Only License.
The Journal of Physiotherapy Research does not retain video copyrights, only the right to the first publication.
Archiving Policy
This journal is digitally preserved in the PKP Preservation Network (PKP PN) for long-term access. You may learn more about the PKP PN here.
Sponsorship and Advertisement Policy
In order to prevent conflicts of interest, as policy, this journal does not accept donations nor sponsorship from other organizations. It is fully sponsored by BAHIANA - School of Medicine and Public Health, with at least one in-house dedicated editor-in-chief and so it will remain. BAHIANA is a not-for-profit private Health Sciences higher education institution based in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil.
Notwithstanding, the researchers who are sponsored by industry are welcome to submit their research reports as long as they are methodologically sound, comply with the scope, section policies, author guidelines and journal mission, and that the sponsorship is fully and properly disclosed according to the ICMJE recommendations on that matter.
Journal History
The Journal of Physiotherapy Research (JPR) was first issued in 2011 and it is sponsored by BAHIANA - School of Medicine and Public Health, a non-profit private Health Sciences higher education institution based in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil.
The JPR was conceived out of the necessity to foster a qualified scientific publishing outlet to absorb the ever-growing scientific output in the field. It is known that qualified information is the main driver of science, technology and social development. The publishing scenario, as it was in 2011, presented scientific journals with a rejection rate at 80%, preventing society as a whole to access results of scientific reports that could be qualified and could otherwise reach a wider audience. Therefore, it was evident the need to create a new qualified journal in physiotherapy.
BAHIANA is dedicated to the Health Sciences education and it was authorized by the Brazilian Ministry of Education in 1971 to implement the state's first and the Brazilian Northeastern region's second physiotherapy undergraduation major. It is known for encouraging professors to improve their skills in research. Their participation in graduation programs also allowed for the identification of the necessity of a new journal in physiotherapy, what is fundamental to the improvement of physiotherapy both as science and as a profession.
Since it was first issued, the JPR has published original articles, resulting from research developed throughout the country and internationally from Portugal, India, Chile, Spain, Iran and Malaysia. The journal is associated to the Brazilian Association of Scientific Editors (ABEC in the Brazilian Portuguese acronym). It has strict policies in order to maintain and foster scientific integrity and transparency, with a minimum of two evaluations for each submission, compliance with research ethics committee requirements and international research ethics guidelines, and textual reuse detection software (Similarity Check, by iThenticate).
In 2018, it was indexed in LILACS, which is the most important and comprehensive index of the scientific and technical literature of Latin America and the Caribbean.
In 2020, it was indexed in SCOPUS, one of the two largest commercial databases of scientific literature of the world.
Editorial policies updated April 29th 2024.
