Editorial Policies
The rules under which International Journal of Pain Management evaluates, corrects and maintains the scholarly record, and the responsibilities they place on authors, editors and reviewers.
Peer review and editorial decisions
Single-blind by default; double-blind review is available on request.
When double-blind review is requested, editors must ensure that author-identifying information is not shared with reviewers.
All submissions undergo initial editorial screening. Manuscripts that meet the journal’s scope and minimum requirements proceed to independent peer review.
Manuscripts that proceed to external peer review are normally evaluated by at least two independent subject-matter experts.
Editorial decisions are based on scope, scientific quality, methodological rigor, ethical compliance, reporting quality, and relevance to the journal.
Editorial decisions are independent of fees, services, memberships and roles.
Article processing charges are invoiced after acceptance, and membership, language editing and any other paid service are handled separately from the editorial process.
Authorship, ethics and research conduct
Everyone listed must have contributed substantially to the work and approved the submitted version. Changes to authorship after submission require written agreement from all authors.
Studies involving people require documented ethical approval and informed consent; studies involving animals require approval from the responsible institutional body. The approving body and protocol identifier are reported in the manuscript.
Interventional clinical trials must be registered in an accepted public trial registry at or before the first participant provides consent for enrollment. The registry name, registration number, and registration date must be reported in the manuscript.
Every empirical research manuscript must include a data-availability statement.
Authors, editors and reviewers declare financial and non-financial interests that a reader could reasonably consider relevant. An editor with an interest in a submission hands it to another editor.
Submissions are checked with Crossref Similarity Check, powered by iThenticate. A report is read in context by an editor rather than applied as an automatic threshold.
Authors disclose any use of generative tools in preparing a manuscript and remain responsible for the whole of it. Reviewers must obtain journal permission before using AI to assist with a review. Any permitted use must be disclosed, and confidential manuscript content must not be uploaded where confidentiality cannot be assured.
Corrections, retractions and preservation
An error that affects the interpretation of a published article is addressed by a citable correction notice linked to the original article, which remains available.
A retraction notice states the reason and who requested it. The article remains online and clearly marked so the published record stays complete.
Where an investigation is open and readers need to know, an expression of concern is published and updated when the matter resolves.
An author may appeal a decision in writing to the editorial office. Appeals are considered by an editor who was not responsible for the original decision.
Articles are published under CC BY 4.0 and authors retain copyright.
This journal’s content is committed to Portico, a not-for-profit digital-preservation archive run by ITHAKA (the organization behind JSTOR). As articles are deposited they enter Portico’s permanent archive, so the scholarly record stays available for the long term — even if a title one day ceases to publish.
Withdrawing a submitted manuscript
The complete withdrawal terms are published on the Article Processing Charges page and are reproduced here in full.
Authors should contact the editorial office promptly and wait for written confirmation before submitting the work elsewhere.
Manuscripts withdrawn within 3 days of submission are not subject to a withdrawal charge.
Manuscripts withdrawn more than 3 days after submission incur a withdrawal charge equal to 30% of the journal’s APC.
Authors must receive official withdrawal confirmation before submitting the manuscript to another journal.