Pharmacotherapy in Psychiatry and Neurology

Farmakoterapia w Psychiatrii i Neurologii
Farmakoter Psychiatr Neurol.
Scopus CiteScore 2025: 0.4
MNiSW – 20
Index Copernicus 2023: 90.54
ISSN 1234-8279 (print)
ISSN 2449-9315 (online) 
Periodicity – biannual

Instructions for Authors

All manuscripts must be prepared in American English. Authors are responsible for ensuring that the language of their submission is of sufficient quality for peer review and publication, as the journal does not provide translation or language-editing services. Submissions that do not comply with the journal’s formatting, language, or other submission requirements may be returned to the authors for revision before further consideration.

 

Pharmacotherapy in Psychiatry and Neurology considers the following types of manuscripts:

  • Original Articles – full-length reports of original research.
  • Review Articles – including narrative reviews, systematic reviews, systematic reviews with meta-analysis, scoping reviews, and other established review formats.
  • Research Protocols – detailed descriptions of planned or ongoing studies that present a scientifically justified research question, rigorous methodology, and a prespecified analysis plan. Protocols should be submitted before completion of data collection and must provide details of ethics approval and prospective registration or preregistration, where applicable.
  • Letters to the Editor – concise scholarly communications that may report original research, including preliminary findings and pilot studies; present clinically relevant case reports or case series; comment on, discuss, or critically appraise articles and other content previously published in Pharmacotherapy in Psychiatry and Neurology; or address other timely topics relevant to the scope of the journal. Case reports and case series are considered exclusively in the Letter to the Editor format.
  • Editorials – articles addressing timely or important topics relevant to the scope of the journal. Editorials are published by invitation only.

 

Manuscripts that have previously been posted on a preprint server are eligible for submission and will not be considered as having been previously published. Authors must disclose the existence of the preprint at the time of submission and provide its DOI or URL, where available. The Editors reserve the right to determine whether a submitted manuscript is appropriate for the selected article type and may recommend reclassification when appropriate.

 

Abstract

An abstract in English must accompany the manuscript. For Original Articles, the abstract should be structured using the following subheadings: Background, Methods, Results, and Conclusions. The abstract must not exceed 250 words.

For Review Articles, the abstract may be unstructured and must not exceed 250 words.

Letters to the Editor and Editorials do not require an abstract.

Abbreviations should be avoided in the abstract whenever possible. Any abbreviation used must be defined at its first occurrence.

 

Keywords

The abstract should be followed by 3–5 keywords in English. Whenever possible, keywords should be selected from the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) vocabulary maintained by the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

 

Highlights

Authors are required to submit article highlights together with their manuscript. Highlights are optional for Letters to the Editor and Editorials. Highlights should briefly communicate the most important and novel aspects of the work, such as key findings, methodological innovations, or their main implications. They are intended to provide readers with a concise overview of the article and improve its visibility and discoverability.

  • Highlights should be uploaded as a separate editable file, with “Highlights” included in the file name.
  • Provide 3–5 bullet points.
  • Each bullet point should contain no more than 85 characters, including spaces.

 

Main text

Manuscripts should be submitted in DOC, DOCX, or RTF format.

The following word limits apply exclusively to the main text (text body) and do not include the abstract, references, tables, figure legends, acknowledgments, or other supplementary sections:

  • Original Articles: maximum 3,500 words
  • Review Articles: maximum 5,000 words
  • Letters to the Editor: maximum 1,000 words
  • Editorials: maximum 1,000 words

The main text of Original Articles should be organized into the following sections: Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion. The objectives or hypotheses of the study should be clearly stated in the Introduction. Conclusions should be presented within the Discussion and should not be provided as a separate bulleted list.

The structure of Review Articles may be adapted to the type and scope of the review. Letters to the Editor and Editorials are not required to follow a predefined section structure.

References, tables, and figures should be numbered and presented in the order in which they are first cited in the manuscript.

Authors should avoid unnecessary use of boldface, italics, and underlining in the main text. Generic drug names should be used throughout the manuscript; proprietary or brand names should be avoided unless their inclusion is scientifically justified. Laboratory and other measurement values should be reported using the International System of Units (SI).

All sources of financial and material support related to the submitted work must be disclosed in the manuscript.

 

Tables and figures

Tables and figures should be submitted as separate files and numbered consecutively using Arabic numerals according to the order in which they are first cited in the manuscript (e.g., Table 1, Table 2; Figure 1, Figure 2). Each table and figure must be cited in the main text.

A maximum of 5 tables and figures combined is permitted for Original Articles and Review Articles. Letters to the Editor and Editorials may include a maximum of 1 table or 1 figure.

Tables should be submitted in XLS, XLSX, DOC, or DOCX format and must remain fully editable. Tables submitted solely as images will not be accepted. Each table should have a concise, informative title, and any explanatory notes should be provided below the table. Vertical lines and unnecessary shading should be avoided.

Figures should be submitted in TIFF, CDR, EPS, JPG, or PNG format, with a minimum resolution of 300 dpi. Each figure should be provided as a separate file and named clearly according to its number (e.g., Figure_1, Figure_2). Text, labels, and symbols within figures must remain clearly legible at the size expected for publication.

Figure legends should be included in the main manuscript file rather than embedded in the figure files. Each legend should include a brief title and sufficient information to allow the figure to be understood independently of the main text.

Tables and figures should be self-explanatory. All abbreviations, symbols, statistical notation, and other relevant elements should be defined in the corresponding table footnotes or figure legends. Data presented in tables or figures should not unnecessarily duplicate information already reported in the main text.

Authors are responsible for obtaining permission to reproduce or adapt previously published tables, figures, or other copyrighted material and should provide appropriate acknowledgment of the original source.

 

References

Authors are responsible for the accuracy and completeness of all references. References must be formatted according to the AMA citation style and should be limited to sources that are directly relevant to the manuscript. Authors are encouraged to cite the most current literature where appropriate, while also acknowledging important earlier work relevant to the topic.

References should be cited in the text using superscript Arabic numerals and numbered consecutively according to the order of their first appearance. Journal titles should be abbreviated according to Index Medicus conventions. For journals not indexed in Index Medicus, the full journal title should be provided.

Whenever available, the DOI should be included. For online sources without a DOI, authors should provide the URL and the date on which the source was accessed.

The Editorial Office verifies all references during the editorial process. Authors are responsible for ensuring that every cited source exists, accurately represents the referenced work, and contains correct bibliographic information, including DOI numbers. Fabricated, inaccurate, or unverifiable references, including bibliographic details generated using artificial intelligence tools, are not acceptable.

The maximum number of references is:

  • Original Articles: 75
  • Review Articles: 200
  • Letters to the Editor: 20
  • Editorials: 20

Manuscripts should follow the journal's AMA Citation Style Guide.

 

Research registration

All clinical trials must be prospectively registered in a publicly accessible and internationally recognized trial registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov or the Clinical Trials Information System (CTIS) of the European Union, or another registry meeting internationally accepted standards. The name of the registry and the registration number must be reported in the Methods section and in the Declarations.

Authors submitting systematic reviews and meta-analyses are strongly encouraged to prospectively register their review protocol in an appropriate registry, such as PROSPERO, whenever the review is eligible for registration. If the protocol has been registered, the registry name and registration number should be provided in the manuscript.

If a study protocol has been published or made publicly available elsewhere, authors should provide the corresponding reference or persistent identifier.

 

Reporting guidelines

Authors must prepare and report their research in accordance with the relevant internationally recognized reporting guideline for the study design. Authors are encouraged to consult the EQUATOR Network when identifying the appropriate guideline and its most current version.

The following reporting guidelines should be used, where applicable:

  • CONSORT – randomized controlled trials
  • PRISMA – systematic reviews and meta-analyses
  • STROBE – observational studies
  • CROSS – survey studies
  • STARD – diagnostic accuracy studies
  • ARRIVE – research involving animals
  • SRQR – qualitative research
  • SQUIRE – studies of healthcare quality and safety improvement
  • STREGA – genetic association studies
  • AGREE – clinical practice guidelines
  • MOOSE – meta-analyses of observational studies
  • BIBLIO – bibliometric reviews
  • SAMPL – statistical reporting in biomedical research

Authors should use the most recent version of the applicable reporting guideline available at the time of manuscript submission. Where required by the relevant guideline or requested by the Editors, a completed reporting checklist and, where applicable, a flow diagram should be submitted as supplementary files.

Compliance with a reporting guideline does not replace the need to provide a complete and transparent description of the study design, methodology, statistical analysis, and results.

 

Declarations

All manuscripts must include Declarations section at the end of the manuscript. The following statements should be provided under separate subheadings, as applicable:

  • Ethics Approval and Consent to Participate
  • Consent for Publication
  • Trial Registration
  • Data Availability
  • Use of Artificial Intelligence and AI-Assisted Technologies

If a declaration does not apply to the submitted manuscript, authors should retain the relevant subheading and state “Not applicable.”

 

Ethics Approval and Consent to Participate

For research involving human participants, human data, or human biological material, authors must provide the name of the approving institutional or independent ethics committee, the approval number or identifier where available, and information regarding informed consent to participate. If ethics approval or informed consent was waived, the reason for the waiver and the authority granting it should be stated.

Research involving human participants must have been conducted in accordance with applicable ethical standards and the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki.

For studies involving animals, authors must provide information on approval by the relevant institutional or national animal research ethics committee and confirm compliance with applicable regulations and standards for animal research.

 

Consent for Publication

Authors must confirm that appropriate consent for publication has been obtained whenever a manuscript contains identifiable information relating to an individual participant, including photographs, images, videos, detailed case descriptions, or other information from which the individual could reasonably be identified.

For manuscripts that do not contain identifiable individual-level information, authors should state “Not applicable.”

 

Trial Registration

For clinical trials, authors must provide the name of the trial registry, registration number, and, where available, a persistent link to the registration record. Clinical trials should be prospectively registered in accordance with the journal’s Research Registration policy.

For other study designs, details of preregistration or protocol registration should be provided when applicable.

 

Data Availability

Pharmacotherapy in Psychiatry and Neurology is committed to promoting transparent, ethical, and reproducible research while fully recognizing the specific legal, ethical, and clinical constraints associated with psychiatric and neurological data.

All manuscripts reporting original research must include a Data Availability Statement. This statement should clearly indicate whether and how the data supporting the findings of the study can be accessed, using one of the following categories:

  • publicly available in a recognized data repository;
  • available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request;
  • available under specific conditions or restrictions; or
  • not available for sharing.

When data are deposited in a repository, authors should provide the repository name and a persistent identifier, such as a DOI, accession number, or other permanent record identifier.

Authors are encouraged to use established subject-specific or general-purpose repositories that ensure long-term preservation and accessibility of research data. Examples include Zenodo, Figshare, Harvard Dataverse, Mendeley Data, and the Open Science Framework (OSF). Where appropriate discipline-specific repositories exist, their use is strongly encouraged.

Data sharing must always comply with applicable ethical approvals, informed consent provisions, data protection regulations, and institutional or national policies. Authors must not publicly share any data that could reasonably compromise participant confidentiality or privacy. This is particularly important for sensitive clinical, psychiatric, neurological, genetic, neuroimaging, and other potentially identifiable individual-level data.

The journal does not require unrestricted public release of data. Where data cannot be shared publicly, authors must clearly explain the reason for this restriction in the Data Availability Statement. Legitimate constraints on data sharing, including ethical, legal, or consent-related limitations, will not in themselves affect the editorial evaluation of the manuscript.

Authors are expected to provide sufficient data and accompanying documentation to allow appropriate interpretation of the results and, where feasible, replication of the analyses. However, data should not be shared when doing so would violate ethical approval conditions, participant consent, legal requirements, contractual obligations, or established confidentiality protections.

Where data are made publicly available, authors are encouraged to deposit the dataset and relevant documentation in a suitable repository prior to or at the time of manuscript submission, and to include access details in the manuscript.

 

Use of Artificial Intelligence and AI-Assisted Technologies

Authors must disclose the use of generative artificial intelligence or AI-assisted technologies in the preparation of the manuscript or its associated content when such tools have contributed to the generation or substantive modification of text, images, figures, or other material.

The declaration should identify the tool used and briefly describe how it was used. AI-assisted technologies used solely for basic spelling, grammar, or language correction do not need to be disclosed.

Artificial intelligence tools cannot be listed as authors or co-authors. Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, integrity, and appropriate attribution of all content submitted to the journal, including content produced or modified with the assistance of AI.

 

Funding

All sources of financial and material support for the work must be disclosed, including the names of funding organizations and grant numbers, where applicable. The role of the funder in study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, manuscript preparation, and the decision to submit the work for publication should be stated when relevant.

If the study received no specific funding, authors should state this explicitly.

 

Conflicts of Interest

All authors must disclose any financial or non-financial relationships or activities that could reasonably be perceived as influencing the submitted work.

 

Author Contributions

Authorship must comply with the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). To qualify as an author, an individual must meet all four of the following criteria:

  1. Substantial contribution to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data;
  2. Drafting the manuscript or critically revising it for important intellectual content;
  3. Final approval of the version to be published; and
  4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work and to ensure that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

All individuals who meet these criteria should be listed as authors, and all listed authors must meet all four criteria.

The specific contributions of each author must be reported. The applicable contributor roles are: Research concept and design; Collection and/or assembly of data; Data analysis and interpretation; Writing the article; Critical revision of the article; Final approval of the article. Individual authors may be assigned more than one role, and the same role may be assigned to multiple authors. The contribution statement must accurately reflect each author’s involvement in the work.

For studies conducted by large or multicenter collaborative groups, the authorship byline should clearly identify the individuals and/or group(s) taking responsibility for the manuscript. Where group authorship is used, the submitting author must provide sufficient information to identify individual contributors and their respective roles.

Individuals who contributed to the work but do not meet all four ICMJE criteria for authorship should not be listed as authors. Their contributions may instead be recognized in the Acknowledgments section. This may include, for example, technical or administrative assistance, general supervision, language editing, or other contributions that do not qualify for authorship. Permission should be obtained from individuals who are named in the Acknowledgments.

The order of authors is determined by the authors themselves and should reflect their mutual agreement. The journal does not determine authorship order or adjudicate authorship disputes.

All authors must approve the submitted version of the manuscript and are responsible for ensuring that their authorship and contribution statements accurately reflect their involvement in the work.

 

ORCID

Authors submitting their manuscripts to Wroclaw University Press journals are encouraged to use a unique ORCID number (Open Researcher and Contributor ID). It is a popular digital tool allowing the identification of the Author and their research work in scientific communication. You can register for an ORCID number for free at: https://orcid.org/.

 

Changes to Authorship

Authors are expected to carefully determine the authorship, author order, corresponding author(s), and individual author contributions before the initial submission of the manuscript. The author list submitted with the original manuscript should be considered definitive.

Any subsequent change to authorship, including the addition or removal of an author, change in author order, change of corresponding author, or substantive modification of individual author contributions, will be considered only in exceptional and appropriately justified circumstances and requires approval by the Editor.

 

Authorship changes during revision

Any change to authorship made between the original submission and a revised version of the manuscript must be explicitly disclosed at the time the revision is submitted. Authors must not introduce changes to the author list or author order in the revised manuscript or submission system without notifying the Editorial Office.

The corresponding author must submit an Authorship Change Request together with the revised manuscript. The request must include:

  • the original author list;
  • the proposed revised author list and author order;
  • a detailed explanation of the reason for each proposed change;
  • where applicable, an updated author contribution statement;
  • identification of any change in the corresponding author; and
  • written confirmation from all authors, including any authors being added or removed, that they agree with the proposed changes.

For an author being added, the explanation must describe the contribution made by that individual and demonstrate that the journal's criteria for authorship are met. Requests to remove an author must include confirmation from the author concerned that they agree to their removal.

The manuscript will not proceed further in the editorial process until the requested authorship change has been reviewed and approved by the Editor. The Editor may request additional information or documentation where necessary.

Changes to authorship after acceptance are not normally permitted. In exceptional circumstances, the Editor may consider a fully documented request before publication. The publication process may be suspended while such a request is evaluated.

Requests for authorship changes after publication will be considered in accordance with the journal's publication ethics and corrections policies and, where approved, may require publication of a formal correction.

The journal and its Editors do not adjudicate or mediate authorship disputes. If agreement cannot be reached among all authors regarding a proposed authorship change, the manuscript may be placed on hold and the authors may be asked to seek resolution through their institution(s) or other appropriate bodies. Editorial consideration may resume once the dispute has been resolved and appropriate documentation has been provided.

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