ISSN 1516-4446 printed version
ISSN 1809-452X online version

INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS

• Aim and editorial policy
• Manuscript preparation
• Manuscript submission

The Revista Brasileira de Psiquiatria (RBP, Brazilian Journal of Psychiatry) – ISSN 1516-4446 – is a quarterly publication of the Associação Brasileira de Psiquiatria (ABP, Brazilian Psychiatric Association), whose mission is to publish original manuscripts in all areas of psychiatry, focusing on public health, clinical epidemiology, basic science and mental health problems that are relevant to our field of study. In addition to regular issues, the RBP publishes two annual supplements aimed at updating clinical data. The selection of manuscripts for publication is based on their originality, the relevance of the topic, the quality of the scientific methodology, and compliance with the editorial requirements of the journal. All manuscripts are peer-reviewed by anonymous referees. Whenever possible, a decision regarding acceptance for publication will be made within three months after submission. The contents of the manuscripts submitted to the RBP can neither have been published previously nor submitted for publication elsewhere. The whole or partial reproduction of manuscripts, either in part or in their entirety, in any other printed or electronic media is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of the RBP editors. The authors are responsible for the accuracy of all concepts and statements contained in the manuscripts. Review articles, update articles and letters may be written in either English, Portuguese or Spanish. Original manuscripts and brief communications must be written entirely in English. All manuscripts must meet the requirements for one of the various manuscript categories of the journal.

Manuscript categories:

Editorials: critical and in-depth commentary, written at the request of the editors or by a person of renowned expertise in the subject being addressed. Editorials should not exceed 900 words and 5 references.

Original articles: these should describe fully, but as concisely as possible, the results of original research, containing all the relevant information for those who wish to reproduce the research or assess the results and conclusions. Original manuscripts must not exceed 5000 words, excluding tables, figures and references. No more than 6 tables and figures will be accepted. Tables, graphs, extra figures, descriptions of existing research instruments, or even new instruments (fully described) may be made available on the Brazilian Psychiatric Association website, pending the approval of the editors and the authors. No more than 40 references will be accepted. The text should be organized in the following sections: Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion and Conclusions. The use of subheadings is specifically recommended in the Discussion section. Clinical implications and limitations of the study must be stated. We suggest, when appropriate, the detailing of the "Methods" section, describing the study design, setting, participants, main outcome measure(s), intervention(s) and the process number of the research ethics committee approval. The abstract should not exceed 200 words and should be structured as follows: Objective, Methods, Results, and Conclusions. Original manuscripts must be written entirely in English.

Brief communications: original, but shorter, manuscripts, addressing topics of interest in the field of psychiatry, with preliminary results or results of immediate relevance; limited to 1500 words, one table or figure and 15 references, and must include an abstract structured according to the guidelines described for original articles. Brief communications must be written entirely in English.

Review articles: review articles are preferably solicited (by the Editors) from specialists in the area. Submissions will be wellcome by means of previous consultation to the Editors with the presentation of the subject and the abstract. These articles are systematic, critical assessments of literature and data sources, aimed at critically reviewing and evaluating existing knowledge on a designated theme, commenting on studies by other authors. The search strategy and selection process should be detailed in the manuscript, including a description of the inclusion/exclusion criteria. Review articles are limited to 6000 words, excluding tables, figures and references. The total number of tables and figures may not exceed 6 (six). There’s no limit for the number of references. The text must be organized in the following sections: Introduction, Methods, Discussion and Conclusions. Additional subdivisions (e.g. "Clinical profile" or "Treatment") may be included if necessary. The abstract must not exceed 200 words and should be structured as follows: Objective, Methods and Conclusions.

Update articles: update articles address current information relevant to clinical practice and are less comprehensive than review articles. Update articles should include a structured abstract of no more than 200 words and are limited to 2000 words and 30 references.

Special articles: articles chosen according to the editor’s criteria, wich follow the format of review or update articles, but wich will be preferably published in English for their being of interest of the international scientific community. Submissions will be wellcome by means of previous consultation to the Editors with the presentation of subject and the abstract.  Special situations regarding the format should be dealt with the RBP's editors.

Letters to the editors: these are reports of unusual cases, discourses on relevant scientific topics, critiques of editorial policy, or opinions and comments on the contents of the journal. Letters should be brief (maximum, 500 words) and may concern material published in the journal or may impart new data and clinical observations. Letters are limited to one table, one figure and 5 references. All authors (limited to five) must sign the letter.
Cases related to interventions (diagnostic or therapeutic) in human beings will be accepted as follows: (1) in the conditions where there is a possibility of the patient signing a written consent, this is the preferential documentation. This includes patients which the clinician has immediate interest to report and are accessible when the decision of reporting the case is made; (2) In the conditions in which the patient has no possibility of signing the informed consent, for example when the patient has already been discharged or is inaccessible or due to any reason does not have cognitive conditions to read or sign a documentation nor do his/her relatives. In such a case two possibilities will be accepted: a letter from the ethics commission from the Hospital or Institution in which the clinician has seen the patient; in cases in which there is no such commission, a letter signed by the clinician taking responsibility for the divulging of the data and explicitly demonstrating that he/she is adopting all the measures for making the case non identifiable by changing and omitting data that could allow its identification.

Book reviews: these are critical reviews of recently published books, guiding readers regarding their characteristics and potential utility. They must be brief and be written by experts in the subject, summarizing the work, offering opinions and giving an overview of the book. Reports must open with the complete bibliographic reference for the book and close with the name(s), academic degree(s) and institutional affiliation(s) of the author(s) of the review.

Supplements: solicited by the Editors. With specific themes aimed at updating clinical data, they are composed by one editorial or presentation and six articles (unless exceptions approved by the Editors). The articles must not exceed 5000 words, excluding tables, figures and references. No more than 6 tables and figures will be accepted. There’s no limit for the number of references. The abstract should not exceed 200 words and should be structured. They are published in Portuguese in the printed version and both Portuguese and English in the online version.

The RBP follows the new Medline rules which require disclosure information on possible conflicts of interests regarding each author and guest editor of the supplements. Editors and authors must specifically address any financial relationship with each sponsoring organization and any interests that organization represents, as well as with any for-profit product discussed or implied in the articles or supplements. That means any activity linked to mental health profit organizations in the last three years.

The following guidelines are in accordance with those established by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, published in the article "Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals", updated in October 2004 and available at http://www.icmje.org/.

The presentation of randomized clinical trials should be in accordance with the CONSORT guidelines (Begg C, Cho N, Eastwood S et al. Improving the quality of reporting of randomized clinical trials: the CONSORT statement. JAMA. 1996;276:637-9). A checklist is available on the JAMA website: http://jama.ama-assn.org.

The registration of all trials in a public trials registry that is acceptable to the ICMJE (http://www.icmje.org/faq.pdf) it’s advisable. For this purpose, a clinical trial is any study that prospectively assigns human subjects to intervention or comparison groups to evaluate 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 (e.g., phase I trials) are exempt.

Trials must be registered at or before the onset of enrollment for any clinical trials starting patient enrollment on or after July 2005. For trials beginning patient enrollment before July 2005, RBP will consider such trials only if they were adequately registered before journal submission.

Trial registry name, registration identification number, and the URL for the registry should be included at the end of the abstract and also in the manuscript submission form. Additionally, author should include a statement in the Method section informing that there is a registration, the registry site, and the trial registration number.

Trials should be registered in one of the following trial registries:

Technical requirements

Authors must submit:

a) Word file, with double space, font 12, margin of 2.5 cm at each side, with pages sequentially numbered with Arabic numbers, starting each section in a new page, in the sequence: Title page, abstract and keywords, text, acknowledgments, references, tables and captions – excluding images, which should be sent in jpg or tiff   format;

b) the copyright transfer statement;

c) a letter signed by all of the authors attesting to the originality of the study. The absence of one or more author signatures will be construed as a lack of interest or as disapproval of the publication, resulting in the name(s) of the author(s) being excluded from the list of authors.

d) the complete address of the corresponding author.

Model of the copyright transfer statement (permission to publish material)

I/We, the author(s) of the article entitled…, submitted for publication in the Revista Brasileira de Psiquiatria (Brazilian Journal of Psychiatry), do hereby agree that all rights to the said article will become the exclusive property of the Associação Brasileira de Psiquiatria (ABP, Brazilian Psychiatric Society), precluding any partial or total reproduction or publication of its contents without the prior express authorization of the ABP, either requested in writing or in person. Date:               Signed:                 

• Authorship criteria  

• Title page: The title page should include: a) the full title, which should be relevant and concise, in both Portuguese and English (or Spanish and English); b) running title with maximum of 40 characters; c) the list of authors, including full names, highest academic degrees and institutional affiliations; d) name of the department and institution to which the study should be attributed; e) full name, address, telephone number, fax number and e-mail address of the author to whom correspondence should be addressed; f) a declaration of all sources of funding. All financial and material support for the research and the work should be clearly and completely identified in a Financing section of the manuscript. The specific role of the funding organization or sponsor in each of the following should be specified: "design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; and preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript; g) potential conflicts of interest. A conflict of interest may exist when an author - or the author’s institution or employer - has financial or personal relationships or affiliations that could influence or bias the author’s decisions, work, or manuscript. All authors are required to disclose all potential conflicts of interest in the table Disclosures, including specific financial interests and relationships and affiliations - other than those affiliations listed in the title page of the manuscript - relevant to the subject of their manuscript.

  Writing group member	Employment	Research grant1	Other research grant or medical continuous education2	Spekear’s honoraria	Ownership interest	Consultant/ Advisory board	Other3

* Modest
** Significant 
*** Significant. Amounts given to the author's institution or to a colleague for research in which the author has participation, not directly to the author.

This table represents the relationships between the writing group members which may be perceived as actual or reasonably perceived conflicts of interest in the last three years and in the foreseeable future, especially those present in the period in which the research was accomplished and in the period of its publication. A relationship is considered to be "significant" if (a) the person receives U$ 10,000 (± R$ 15,000.00) or more during a 12-month period or an amount equal to or above 5% of the gross income of the person in the same period; or (b) the person has an ownership interest, even in non-voting stocks, in a company not only of the pharmaceutical industry, but in any one linked to the development of technology which may be associated with conflict of interests. A relationship is considered to be "modest" if it is less than "significant" under the precedent definition. In case of participation in more than one activity in the same company (for example, speaker's honoraria + participation in advisory board), the definition of a significant relationship is based on the amount received during a 12-month period (consider both activities as significant, even if the threshold of a significant relationship be only surpassed by adding all the amounts received).

¹ In this field, include research grants from any financing agency, company of the pharmaceutical industry, or any other linked to the development of technology or an ideological stand which may be associated with a conflict  of interests, either with amounts paid directly to the author or amounts paid to a program, department or non-government organization (even non-for-profit) to which the author is directly linked as party with deciding power (do not include class associations or organizations in which the author is a member, but does not participate in the board of directors with an immediate deciding power). Include the grant received by a colleague provided the author takes part in the research in case. The description of a relationship as modest or significant follows the precedent definitions.

² In this field, include any other research or continuous medical education grant received from the pharmaceutical industry, or from any other institution linked to the development of technology or ideological stand which may be associated with conflict of interests that generate benefits/goods donated to the author, or to the program, department or non-government organization (even non-for-profit) to which the author is directly linked as a party with deciding power (do not include class associations or organizations of which the author is a member, but does not participate in the board of directors with an immediate deciding power). The description of a relationship as modest or significant follows the precedent definitions.

³ In this field, include any other amount/benefit/good worth above U$ 600 (± R$ 1,000.00) directly received by the author (the examples include, but are not restricted to, lodgment, air tickets, food) from a pharmaceutical industry, or from any other one linked to the development of technology or an ideological stand which may be associated with a conflict of interests. Include also amounts related to copyright received due to the bibliographic production (books, e-books, e-learning, among others) which may be associated with conflict of interests.

Authors who do not have conflicts of interest, including financial interests and specific links and affiliations which are relevant to the subject of their article should include the symbol --- on each item of the table.

Authors are expected to provide detailed information about all relevant financial interests and relationships or financial conflicts within the past 3 years and for the foreseeable future, particularly those present at the time the research was conducted and through publication.

• Abstract and keywords: The second page should include one version of the abstract in Portuguese (or in Spanish) and another version in English, each version limited to 200 words for original manuscripts, review articles, brief communications and updates. Must be structured, highlighting the objectives of the study, methods, principal results presenting significant data, and conclusions. A list of up to 5 keywords central to the study should appear below the abstract. Keywords must be chosen among those available at the online submission system (ScholarOne). They are based on the Descritores em Ciências da Saúde (DeCS, Health Sciences Keywords) site, which is a translation of the National Library of Medicine Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) list, is published by Bireme and is available at http://decs.bvs.br.

• Text: The text should conform to the structure delineated for each article category. For all manuscript types, references should be cited consecutively in the text as superscript Arabic numerals in parentheses. Avoid using the name(s) of the author(s) in the text. Citations in the text and references cited in table and figure legends should be numbered consecutively in order of appearance and should include only the reference number, minus any additional information.

• Tables: Each table should appear on a separate page. Tables should be numbered consecutively using Arabic numbers, following the order in which they are cited in the text. An appropriate title should be provided for each table. Tables should supplement, rather than duplicate, information given in the text. Tables should be self-explanatory, as should their titles and footnotes. Tables from other sources should cite the original references in their footnotes. Tables’ size should not exceed one page. Whenever the sample’s size (n) is available it should be in the table’s title. The symbols identified in the footnotes should keep the following standard: *, **, ***, †, ††, †††, ‡, ‡‡, ‡‡‡,,,

• Figures and graphs:  Illustrations (pictures, graphs, drawings, etc.) must be individually submitted in JPEG (300 dpi) format. They should be consecutively numbered using Arabic numerals, following the order in which they are cited in the text. They should be of sufficiently clarity to permit their reproduction. Legends for figures must be submitted on separate pages. Photocopies will not be accepted. If images are extracted from other previously published works, authors must provide written permission for their reproduction. This authorization should accompany manuscripts submitted for publication.

• Statistical analysis: The authors should demonstrate that the statistical procedures adopted were not only appropriate for testing the study hypotheses but also correctly interpreted. Levels of statistical significance (e.g. p < 0.05; p < 0.01; p < 0.001) must be mentioned.

• Abbreviations: Abbreviations must be defined at their first use. Thereafter, the long form of the term should not be repeated.

• Medicine: Use generic drug names.

• Acknowledgments: Authors should acknowledge the contributions of persons, groups and institutions that merit recognition but do not constitute authorship. Any financial support, technical support, etc. should be mentioned in this section.

• References: List references in consecutive numerical order, following the order of citation in the text. References should follow the Vancouver Style, in accordance with the examples shown below. References to journal articles must be abbreviated in accordance with the National Library of Medicine List of Journals Indexed in Index Medicus, available at: ftp://nlmpubs.nlm.nih.gov/online/journals/ljiweb.pdf.

The authors are responsible for concordance between references cited in the text and the reference list, as well as for the accuracy and completeness of the references listed, verifying names, dates and selling. Personal communications, unpublished or in-press studies should be cited when absolutely necessary (in the text or in a footnote) but should not be included in the list of references. The list of references should follow the model of the examples below.

List all authors’ names always.

Journal articles
Almeida OP. Autoria de artigos científicos: o que fazem os tais autores? Rev Bras Psiquiatr. 1998;20(2):113-6.  

Maia E, Martins RL, César MP, Baiôco M, Oliveira RG, Menandro PR, Garcia ML, Macieira MS. O alcoolismo sob a ótica dos candidatos ao vestibular da Ufes. Rev Bras Psiquiatr. 2000;22(2):72-5.

Articles with no author name
Cancer in South Africa [editorial]. S Afr Med J. 1994;84(1):15.

Books
Ringsven MK, Bond D. Gerontology and leadership skills for nurses. 2nd ed. Albany (NY): Delmar Publishers; 1996.

Chapters in a book
Phillips SJ, Whisnant JP. Hypertension and stroke. In: Laragh JH, Brenner BM, editors. Hypertension: pathophysiology, diagnosis, and management. 2nd ed. New York: Raven Press; 1995. p. 465-78.

Books in which editors (or compilers) are authors
Norman IJ, Redfern SJ, editors. Mental health care for elderly people. New York: Churchill Livingstone; 1996.

Theses
Kaplan SJ. Post-hospital home health care: the elderly’s access and utilization [dissertation]. St. Louis (MO): Washington Univ.; 1995.

Works presented at conferences
Bengtsson S, Solheim BG. Enforcement of data protection, privacy and security in medical informatics. In: Lun KC, Degoulet P, Piemme TE, Rienhoff O, editors. MEDINFO 92. Proceedings of the 7th World Congress on Medical Informatics; 1992 Sep 6-10; Geneva, Switzerland. Amsterdam: North-Holland;1992. p. 1561-5.

Articles in electronic format
Morse SS. Factors in the emergence of infectious diseases. Emerg Infect Dis [serial on the Internet] 1995 Jan-Mar [cited 1996 Jun 5];1(1):[about 24 screens]. Available from: URL: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/eid.htm

Other types of references should follow the guidelines set forth in the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (Vancouver group) statement, available at www.icmje.org, October 2004.

Submissions should be accomplished online in the link: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/rbp. The copyright transfer statement and the proof of approval by the research ethics committee of the institution where the study was carried out (when human subjects are involved), as well as the letter signed by all the authors confirming the originality of the study, must be necessarily submitted by fax to the RBP (fax number: 55 11 5579-6210).