Instructions to authors

Scope and policy

Aims and scope

Trends in Psychiatry and Psychotherapy is a peer-reviewed, multidisciplinary journal that assures rapid publication of current and original research papers and authoritative reviews produced by expert national and international bodies. The journal covers the broad spectrum of clinical psychiatry and basic science, with a focus on the interaction between experimental and clinical research. Other types of articles whose primary focus is to help translate fundamental discoveries from basic science into the reality of clinical psychiatric practice will also be considered (see types of articles accepted below). These may include papers on psychological processes and behavior, neuropsychology, psychopharmacology, clinical neuroscience, psychotherapy, and other areas of relevance to one or more aspects of psychopathology and psychiatry.

The journal adopts the continuous article publication model and is the official scientific publication of Associação de Psiquiatria do Rio Grande do Sul (APRS, Brazil). The journal is fully open access (www.scielo.br/trends), and there are no publication fees. All journal content (except where identified) is licensed under a Creative Commons attribution-type BY (CC-BY), and all published papers are assigned a DOI number. The journal’s manuscript submission web site is available at http://mc04.manuscriptcentral.com/trends-scielo.

These instructions are based on the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals published by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). The journal observes the publication ethics principles described by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Language and AI-assisted writing

All manuscripts should be submitted in English. Only manuscripts written in clear and understandable language will be sent to peer review.

AI and AI-assisted technologies (e.g., ChatGPT) should only be used to improve readability and language. They should complement the researcher’s writing task, not replace it. The authors are fully responsible for texts submitted and published using these technologies. AI and AI-assisted technologies should never be listed as author, but their use should be clearly disclosed in the Methods section.

Peer review process

Manuscripts submitted to Trends in Psychiatry and Psychotherapy are initially evaluated with regard to conformity with the journal’s scope and editorial line and screened for plagiarism (built-in tool available in the submission system). If the paper is in accordance with the journal’s editorial policies and with the present Instructions for Authors, it will be submitted to review by at least two reviewers selected by the editors; the reviewers remain anonymous throughout the review process. Within 60 days, the authors are informed of either the acceptance, rejection, or need for revisions in the article, as requested by the Editorial Board. A decision letter and the reviewers’ comments are emailed to the authors. Authors are requested to return revised manuscripts within 30 days and to provide a letter with detailed responses to each of the reviewers’ comments. Failure to re-submit the article within 30 days will cause the paper to be withdrawn from the submission system. Revised manuscripts are sent back to reviewers for reassessment. At this time, a new decision is made, for either the acceptance, rejection, or need for additional revisions. Based on the reviewers’ comments, the editors make the final decision.

In line with open science principles, starting in 2024, accepted articles will be published along with the name of the editor responsible for handling and accepting the study

Preprints

The journal encourages and accepts submission of articles already available in preprint platforms, e.g., Preprints and SciELO Preprints. Previous publication as a preprint should be clearly indicated in the submission.

Manuscript preparation

Types of articles accepted

•  Editorials: Critical and thorough comments written by the editors and/or invited authors with renowned experience in the topic being addressed.
•  Perspectives: Articles published in this section present criticism or address controversies in a trendy topic. Perspective articles are forward-looking and may be more speculative than traditional reviews, often provoking thought on the field of research under discussion. They go beyond merely outlining a problem, by providing a detailed roadmap for proposed solutions. These articles are expected to be between 3,500 to 4,500 words long, ensuring a comprehensive exploration of the chosen topic. Up to 4 tables and 4 figures are allowed (additional data may be published as online-only supplementary material). There is not a fixed text structure for the main text of these articles. They should be accompanied by an unstructured abstract with no more than 250 words.
•  Review Articles: Systematic and updated reviews about issues considered to be relevant for the journal’s editorial line. These articles are aimed at reviewing and critically assessing the knowledge available on a specific topic, including comments on other authors’ studies. They should be up to 4,500 words long, and the number of tables and figures should not exceed a total of six (additional data may be published as online-only supplementary material). There is not a fixed text structure for these articles, but they should be accompanied by a structured abstract with no more than 250 words and subtitles that reflect the text structure.
•  Original Articles: These articles present original research data and should contain all the necessary relevant information so as to enable the reader to repeat the experiment and evaluate results and conclusions. Therefore, the original data may be provided as part of the submission (e.g. as supplementary material), or via a public data repository, or directly by the authors upon request. Original articles should include the following sections: Introduction, Method, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, and other subtitles, when necessary. The research should have been conducted in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration, and the authors should clearly describe, in the Methods section, the existence and use of an informed consent form, as well as approval of the study protocol by the ethics committee of the institution where the study was carried out (or compliance with institutional and national standards for the care and use of laboratory animals, where applicable). These articles should be up to 4,500 words long and should contain no more than six tables or figures (additional data may be published as online-only supplementary material). These manuscripts should include a structured abstract with no more than 250 words and subtitles that reflect the text structure.
•  Brief Communications: Original but shorter manuscripts, with preliminary results or results of immediate relevance. These communications should be up to 1,500 words long and should include only one table or figure. The text should be divided into the following sections: Introduction, Method, Results, and Discussion. These articles should contain a structured abstract with no more than 200 words and subtitles that reflect the text structure.
•  Letters to the Editors: These are limited to comments on papers published in the journal. Texts should be brief, with no more than 500 words. Only one table and one figure are allowed.

Preparing the manuscript

1. General principles

The text of articles reporting original research should be divided into Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion sections, but subheadings within these sections may be needed to further organize their content. Other types of articles, such as meta-analyses, may require different formats, while narrative reviews and editorials may have less structured or unstructured formats. All pages should be numbered. Electronic formats have created opportunities for adding details or sections, layering information, cross-linking, or extracting portions of articles in electronic versions. Supplementary electronic-only material should be submitted and sent for peer review simultaneously with the primary manuscript.

2. Authorship and Acknowledgments

The ICMJE recommends that authorship be based on the following four criteria:

•  Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
•  Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
•  Final approval of the version to be published; AND
•  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.

In addition to being accountable for the parts of the work he or she has done, an author should be able to identify which co-authors are responsible for specific other parts of the work. In addition, authors should have confidence in the integrity of the contributions of their co-authors. The corresponding author takes primary responsibility for communication with the journal during the manuscript submission, peer review, and publication process.

All those designated as authors should meet all four criteria for authorship, and all who meet the four criteria should be identified as authors. It is the collective responsibility of the authors to determine that all people named as authors meet all four criteria. Those who do not meet all four criteria should be acknowledged.

The Acknowledgments section should disclose any sources of financial support received by the study. In addition, this section should acknowledge people, groups or institutions which have made important contributions to the study but do not meet the criteria for authorship (e.g., technical assistance, statistical analysis, writing, etc.).

Starting in 2024, accepted articles will describe the specific contributions of each author according to the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT).

3. Reporting guideline

Reporting guidelines have been developed for different study designs; examples include CONSORT for randomized trials, STROBE for observational studies, PRISMA for systematic reviews and meta-analyses, and STARD for studies of diagnostic accuracy. Authors are encouraged to follow these guidelines. Moreover, authors of review manuscripts are encouraged to describe the methods used for locating, selecting, extracting, and synthesizing data; this is mandatory for systematic reviews.

Randomized clinical trials. Trends in Psychiatry and Psychotherapy will only accept for publication clinical trials that have been registered in Clinical Trials Registries. The registration number will be disclosed at the end of the abstract. In the text, whenever a registration number is available, authors should list that number the first time they use a trial acronym to refer to the trial they are reporting or to other trials that they mention in the manuscript.

4. Manuscript sections

The following are general requirements for reporting within sections of all study designs and manuscript formats.

Title page

General information about an article and its authors is presented on a manuscript title page. This page should include the article title, author information, any disclaimers, sources of support, word count, and the number of tables and figures. Detailed instructions are provided below.

•  Article title. The title should provide a distilled description of the complete article and should include information that, along with the Abstract, will make electronic retrieval of the article sensitive and specific. Whenever deemed appropriate, information about the study design should be a part of the title (particularly important for randomized trials and systematic reviews and meta-analyses).
•  A short title of no more than 50 characters should be provided.
•  Author information should include full names typed exactly as they should appear in print, ORCID IDs, emails, and main affiliation(s). The name of the department(s) and institution(s) or organization(s) where the work should be attributed should be specified.
•  The corresponding author should be identified, and a full mailing address (including ZIP code), telephone and fax numbers, and an email address should be provided.
•  Source(s) of support. These include grants, equipment, drugs, and/or other support that facilitated conduct of the work described in the article or the writing of the article itself. Any relevant role of the funder in the study should be disclaimed. Studies that have received no financial support should indicate so.
•  Conflict of interest declaration. Conflicts of interest may result from different types of relationship, e.g. personal, commercial, political, academic, or financial, and they may affect authors, reviewers, or journal editors and staff. Conflict of interest information for each author needs to be part of the manuscript. A general statement should be included in the title page, attesting to the existence (or non-existence) of any conflicts of interest concerning the publication of the article. In addition, all authors are required to fill and submit an ICMJE conflict of interest disclosure form (one for each author) at the time of submission.
•  Articles based on academic theses or dissertations, or previously presented at scientific meetings, should disclose this on the title page. Please provide as many details as possible (e.g., the title of the original work, year, name of institution/venue/event, etc.).
•  A word count for the paper's text, excluding the abstract, acknowledgments, tables, figure legends, and references, should be provided.
•  The date of the last literature review performed by the authors on the manuscript topic should be informed.

Abstract

Abstracts should be no longer than 250 words. The abstract should provide the context or background for the study and should state the study's purpose, basic procedures (selection of study participants, settings, measurements, analytical methods), main findings (giving specific effect sizes and their statistical and clinical significance, if possible), and principal conclusions. It should emphasize new and important aspects of the study or observations, note important limitations, and not overinterpret findings. Because abstracts are the only substantive portion of the article indexed in many electronic databases, and the only portion many readers read, authors need to ensure that they accurately reflect the content of the article. For clinical trials, the clinical trial registration number will be disclosed at the end of the abstract.

Keywords

Following the abstract, three to six keywords should be provided in accordance with the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH, http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/meshhome.html). If possible, a Brazilian Portuguese translation of the abstract (resumo) and keywords (palavras-chave) should also be provided; in this case, the palavras-chave should be compliant with the DeCS database (DeCS – Descritores em Ciências da Saúde, http://decs.bvs.br/).

Statistical analysis

Describe statistical methods with enough detail to enable a knowledgeable reader with access to the original data to judge its appropriateness for the study and to verify the reported results. When possible, quantify findings and present them with appropriate indicators of measurement error or uncertainty (such as confidence intervals). Avoid relying solely on statistical hypothesis testing, such as p values, which fail to convey important information about effect size and precision of estimates. References for the design of the study and statistical methods should be to standard works when possible (with pages stated). Define statistical terms, abbreviations, and symbols. Specify the statistical software package and version used. Distinguish prespecified from exploratory analyses, including subgroup analyses.

For additional guidance on how to prepare each section of the main text, please refer to the Recommendations.

References

Authors should provide direct references to original research sources whenever possible. Although references to review articles can be an efficient way to guide readers to a body of literature, review articles do not always reflect original work accurately. On the other hand, extensive lists of references to original work on a topic can use excessive space. Do not use conference abstracts as references; they can be cited in the text, in parentheses. References to papers accepted but not yet published should be designated as “in press.” Information from manuscripts submitted but not accepted should be cited in the text as “unpublished observations” with written permission from the source. Avoid citing a “personal communication” unless it provides essential information not available from a public source, in which case the name of the person and date of communication should be cited in parentheses in the text. The accuracy of references is the responsibility of the authors.

References should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text. Identify references in text, tables, and legends by superscript Arabic numerals. References cited only in tables or figure legends should be numbered in accordance with the sequence established by the first identification in the text of the particular table or figure.

References should be listed at the end of the article according to their order of citation in the text and should comply with the style set forth in the NLM's International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals: Sample References webpage. The titles of journals should be abbreviated according to the style used for MEDLINE (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/journals). These resources are regularly updated as new media develop, and currently include guidance for print documents; unpublished material; audio and visual media; material on CD-ROM, DVD, or disk; and material on the Internet. Please consult published issues for style details. An EndNote style can also be downloaded here.

Journal article example: Halpern SD, Ubel PA, Caplan AL. Solid-organ transplantation in HIV-infected patients. N Engl J Med. 2002;347:284-7.

Tables

Tables should complement, not duplicate information contained in the text. They should not exceed 30,000 characters (including spaces); larger tables may be considered if the authors justify their need. Tables should not be submitted as images, but should be created using specific word processor tools. Do not underline or draw lines inside the tables. Do not insert spaces to separate columns. Number tables consecutively in the order of their first citation in the text using Arabic numerals and supply a title for each.

Titles in tables should be short but self-explanatory, containing information that allows readers to understand the table's content without having to go back to the text. Be sure that each table is cited in the text. Give each column a short or an abbreviated heading. Authors should place explanatory matter in footnotes, not in the heading. Explain all nonstandard abbreviations in footnotes, and use symbols to explain information if needed (*, †, ‡, §, ||, ¶, **, ††, etc.). Identify statistical measures of variations, such as standard deviation and standard error of the mean.

If you use data from another published or unpublished source, obtain permission and acknowledge that source fully.

Additional tables containing backup data too extensive to publish in print may be appropriate for publication in the electronic version of the journal, as supplementary online material, or made available to readers directly by the authors. An appropriate statement should be added to the text to inform readers that this additional information is available and where it is located. Submit such tables for consideration with the paper so that they will be available to the peer reviewers.

Figures

Digital images of manuscript illustrations (all referred to as “Figure”) should be submitted in a suitable format for print publication (preferably .tif, with a minimum resolution of 300 dpi). Letters, numbers, and symbols on figures should be clear and consistent throughout, and large enough to remain legible when the figure is reduced for publication. Figures should be made as self-explanatory as possible. Titles and detailed explanations belong in the legends, not on the illustrations themselves.

Figures should be numbered consecutively according to the order in which they have been cited in the text. If a figure has been published previously, acknowledge the original source and submit written permission from the copyright holder to reproduce it. Permission is required irrespective of authorship or publisher except for documents in the public domain. Photographs should not allow patient identification.

In the manuscript, legends for illustrations should be on a separate page, with Arabic numerals corresponding to the illustrations. When symbols, arrows, numbers, or letters are used to identify parts of the illustrations, identify and explain each one clearly in the legend.

5. Units of Measurement

Measurements of length, height, weight, and volume should be reported in metric units (meter, kilogram, or liter) or their decimal multiples. Temperatures should be in degrees Celsius. Blood pressures should be in millimeters of mercury.

6. Abbreviations and symbols

Use only standard abbreviations; use of nonstandard abbreviations can be confusing to readers. Avoid abbreviations in the title of the manuscript. The spelled-out abbreviation followed by the abbreviation in parenthesis should be used on first mention unless the abbreviation is a standard unit of measurement.

7. Drugs

Drugs should be referred to by their generic name only.

Sending the manuscripts

Manuscripts submitted to Trends in Psychiatry and Psychotherapy should not have been published elsewhere in whole or in part and should not have been or be submitted simultaneously for publication in any other journal(s). Previous presentation of the manuscript as abstract or poster at scientific meetings (conferences, workshops, etc.) is allowed, but should be informed on the title page.

Submissions should be made using the ScholarOne Manuscripts online system, available at http://mc04.manuscriptcentral.com/trends-scielo. Registration (login and password) is required on first access, prior to submission.

The submission system has several required fields and also some optional fields. One of the required fields is related to the indication of potential reviewers for the submitted manuscript. Authors should inform the name, email address and affiliation of five preferred reviewers, i.e., experts in the field who do not have conflicts of interest that may impede them from revising the authors’ work (for example, indicated reviewers should not be from the same institutions as authors). The final decision on the reviewers assigned for each manuscript lies with the editors.

All manuscripts should be accompanied by ICMJE conflict of interest disclosure forms for each author. A cover letter including the following information is also recommended.

• A full statement to the editor about all submissions and previous reports that might be regarded as redundant publication of the same or very similar work. Any such work should be referred to specifically and referenced in the new paper. Copies of such material should be included with the submitted paper to help the editor address the situation.
• A statement of financial or other relationships that might lead to a conflict of interest, if that information is not included in the manuscript itself.
• A statement on authorship. It is the collective responsibility of the authors to determine that all people named as authors meet all authorship criteria. All authors should have read and approved the version submitted.
• Contact information for the corresponding author, if that information is not included in the manuscript itself.

The letter or form should give any additional information that may be helpful to the editor, such as the type or format of article that the manuscript represents. If the manuscript has been submitted previously to another journal, it is helpful to include the previous editor’s and reviewers’ comments with the submitted manuscript, along with the authors’ responses to those comments. Editors encourage authors to submit these previous communications. Doing so may expedite the review process and encourages transparency and sharing of expertise.

The manuscript must also be accompanied by permission to reproduce previously published material, use previously published illustrations, report information about identifiable persons, or to acknowledge people for their contributions.

For system support and information on the status of submitted manuscripts, please contact Denise Arend at trends.denise@gmail.com. For general information about the journal, please contact the editorial office at trends@aprs.org.br.

Contact

Associação de Psiquiatria do Rio Grande do Sul, Av. Ipiranga, 5311/202, 90610-001, Porto Alegre, Rs, Brazil, E-mail: trends@aprs.org.br, Tel./Fax: (55 51) 3024 4846