About

Aims and scope

The Journal of Patient-Reported Outcomes (JPRO) is an international, open access, multi-disciplinary journal publishing original manuscripts in the field of patient-reported outcomes (PROs). Listed below are some examples of the types of papers to be considered for publication in JPRO.

1) PROs in clinical trials. Results and methodology for PROs in clinical trials and other clinical studies.

2) PROs in clinical practice. Methods and applications of PROs in clinical practice, including individual patient management and using PRO results from comparative studies.

3) Patient, family, community, and public engagement. Methods to engage patients, family members, and members of the general public in the process of PRO-related research, policy formulation, and clinical guidelines development, and the evaluation of the effects of such engagement.

4) Qualitative studies on the development and application of PROs. Application, innovation, and best practices in qualitative and mixed methods in the development and use of PRO measures.

5) Studies of the social and behavioural determinants of health using PRO measures. Observational studies with PRO content.

6) Patient-Reported Experience Measures (PREMs). Factors which may impact the experiences of patients, as well as their families, caregivers and healthcare providers. Innovative methods of capturing and analysing patient experiences.

7) Other papers. JPRO will consider original research and review articles, brief communications, commentaries, editorials, and reviews of recent books and software advances relevant to topics 1 through 6, above.

In general, Journal of Patient-Reported Outcomes does not publish case reports, articles reporting study designs, pilot studies, or feasibility studies.

The Journal of Patient-Reported Outcomes is an official publication of the International Society for Quality of Life Research (ISOQOL).

Why publish your article in Journal of Patient-Reported Outcomes?

We are an official journal of the International Society for Quality of Life Research (ISOQOL), a leading society in the field of health-related quality of life research.
We are an international, open access, multi-disciplinary journal publishing original manuscripts in the field of patient-reported outcomes.
Our renowned editorial team offers expert early guidance for researchers, helping transform their ideas into discoveries.

Open access

All articles published by the Journal of Patient-Reported Outcomes are made freely and permanently accessible online immediately upon publication, without subscription charges or registration barriers. Further information about open access can be found here.

As authors of articles published in the Journal of Patient-Reported Outcomes you are the copyright holders of your article and have granted to any third party, in advance and in perpetuity, the right to use, reproduce or disseminate your article, according to the SpringerOpen copyright and license agreement.

For those of you who are US government employees or are prevented from being copyright holders for similar reasons, SpringerOpen can accommodate non-standard copyright lines. Please contact us if further information is needed.

Article-processing charges

Open-access publishing is not without costs. Journal of Patient-Reported Outcomes therefore levies an article-processing charge of £1290.00/$1790.00/€1490.00 for each article accepted for publication, plus VAT or local taxes where applicable. Book reviews, commentaries, and short reports are subject to an APC of £555/$870/€710. The APC is determined at the date of acceptance.

If the corresponding author's institution participates in our open access membership program, some or all of the publication cost may be covered (more details available on the membership page). We routinely waive charges for authors from low-income countries. For other countries, article-processing charge waivers or discounts are granted on a case-by-case basis to authors with insufficient funds. Authors can request a waiver or discount during the submission process. For further details, see our article-processing charge page.

Visit Springer Nature’s open access funding & support services for information about research funders and institutions that provide funding for APCs.

Springer Nature offers agreements that enable institutions to cover open-access publishing costs. Learn more about our open access agreements to check your eligibility and discover whether this journal is included.

For more information on APCs please see our Journal Pricing FAQs.

Journal of Patient-Reported Outcomes levies a lower article processing charge of £555/$870/€710.00 for short report articles, commentaries and book reviews accepted for publication. For further information on article types, please see the journal submission guidelines.

Journal of Patient-Reported Outcomes offers a discount on the article-processing charge, if the submitting author of an article is a member of the International Society for Quality of Life Research (ISOQOL). Please visit the Society website for further information.

Indexing services

All articles Published in Journal of Patient-Reported Outcomes are included in:

DOAJ
EBSCO Discovery Service
Emerging Sources Citation Index
Scopus
Google Scholar
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China
Naver
OCLC WorldCatDiscovery Service
ProQuest-ExLibris Primo
ProQuest-ExLibris Summon
PubMed Central
Semantic Scholar
Web of Science
Medline

The full text of all articles is deposited in digital archives around the world to guarantee long-term digital preservation. You can also access all articles published by SpringerOpen on SpringerLink.

Peer-review policy

Peer-review is the system used to assess the quality of a manuscript before it is published. Independent researchers in the relevant research area assess submitted manuscripts for originality, validity and significance to help editors determine whether the manuscript should be published in their journal. You can read more about the peer-review process here.

Journal of Patient-Reported Outcomes operates a double-blind peer-review system, where the reviewers do not know the names or affiliations of the authors and the reviewer reports provided to the authors are anonymous.

The benefit of double-blind peer review is that it allows reviewers to judge the manuscript based on content alone, and they are not unconsciously biased by knowledge of who the authors are.

Submitted manuscripts will generally be reviewed by a minimum of two experts who will be asked to evaluate whether the manuscript is scientifically sound and coherent, whether it duplicates already published work, and whether or not the manuscript is sufficiently clear for publication. Reviewers will also be asked to indicate how interesting and significant the research is. The Editors will reach a decision based on these reports and, where necessary, they will consult with members of the Editorial Board.

Editorial policies

All manuscripts submitted to Journal of Patient-Reported Outcomes should adhere to SpringerOpen's editorial policies.

Once your article is accepted, it will be processed by production and published shortly afterwards. In some cases, articles may be held for a short period of time prior to publication. If you have any concerns or particular requirements please contact the Journal.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Appeals and complaints

Authors who wish to appeal a rejection or make a complaint should follow the procedure outlined in the BMC Editorial Policies .

Citing articles in Journal of Patient-Reported Outcomes

Articles in Journal of Patient-Reported Outcomes should be cited in the same way as articles in a traditional journal. Because articles are not printed, they do not have page numbers; instead, they are given a unique article number.

Article citations follow this format:

Authors: Title. J Patient Rep Outcomes [year], [volume number]:[article number].

e.g. [insert full example] Roberts LD, Hassall DG, Winegar DA, Haselden JN, Nicholls AW, Griffin JL: Increased hepatic oxidative metabolism distinguishes the action of Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor delta from Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor gamma in the Ob/Ob mouse. J Patient Rep Outcomes 2009, 1:115.

refers to article 115 from Volume 1 of the journal.

Benefits of publishing with SpringerOpen

High visibility

Journal of Patient-Reported Outcomes's open access policy allows maximum visibility of articles published in the journal as they are available to a wide, global audience.

Speed of publication

Journal of Patient-Reported Outcomes offers a fast publication schedule whilst maintaining rigorous peer review; all articles must be submitted online, and peer review is managed fully electronically (articles are distributed in PDF form, which is automatically generated from the submitted files). Articles will be published with their final citation after acceptance, in both fully browsable web form, and as a formatted PDF; the article will then be available through Journal of Patient-Reported Outcomes and SpringerOpen.

Flexibility

Online publication in Journal of Patient-Reported Outcomes gives you the opportunity to publish large datasets, large numbers of color illustrations and moving pictures, to display data in a form that can be read directly by other software packages so as to allow readers to manipulate the data for themselves, and to create all relevant links (for example, to PubMed, to sequence and other databases, and to other articles).

Promotion and press coverage

Articles published in Journal of Patient-Reported Outcomes are included in article alerts and regular email updates.
In addition, articles published in Journal of Patient-Reported Outcomes may be promoted by press releases to the general or scientific press. These activities increase the exposure and number of accesses for articles published in Journal of Patient-Reported Outcomes.

Copyright

Authors of articles published in Journal of Patient-Reported Outcomes retain the copyright of their articles and are free to reproduce and disseminate their work (for further details, see the copyright and license agreement).

For further information about the advantages of publishing in a journal from SpringerOpen, please click here.