Improving the visibility and quality
of clinical and social pharmacy practice
Preamble
Overwhelming evidence underscores the importance of a well-defined scientific paradigm—that is, the extent of scholarly consensus within a discipline regarding its teaching, research priorities, and methodological approaches. The field of pharmacy practice, encompassing both clinical and social dimensions, has made substantial progress toward establishing such a paradigm. However, further efforts are needed to consolidate and advance this shared framework.
Journals in this area play a pivotal role by enhancing the visibility, rigor, and quality of the research they publish. These goals can be best achieved through collaboration among journals to support researchers, authors, reviewers, and publishers in pursuing a common vision for the discipline’s continued development.
Current initiatives
We are currently working on the following actions and initiatives:
- Identify preferred terms used to describe pharmacy practice and other descriptors of the work undertaken by all persons involved in the medication use process. Promote the use of these terms amongst scholars, reviewers, and editors.
- Promote unique pharmacy practice classifications separate from pharmacology so that journals in practice can effectively be designated as Q1 and Q2 journals in accordance with the discipline.
- Encourage scholars to submit some of their “best” or top papers from their work to journals within the discipline.
- Increase submissions from authors outside of pharmacy practice to submit important papers on the medication use process to pharmacy practice, as opposed to journals in medicine, public health, and other disciplines, even while recognizing the importance of all scholars distributing their work to varied formats and audiences.
- Identify training platforms for peer reviewers that will enhance their self-efficacy and the quality of their reviews for all journals within and outside of pharmacy practice, but particularly for the ICPJE journals.
- Identify and share mechanisms aimed to improve the acceptance rate of invitations to peer review, and the quality of peer review, for journals in the ICPJE.
- Help authors select the most appropriate journal among the ICPJE in which to first submit; adequately delineate the similarities and differences that exist among the journals.
- Facilitate to the extent possible the ability of authors to submit their papers more easily to another ICPJE journal as recommended by the original journal submitted.
- Encourage and facilitate submissions among scholars conducting interdisciplinary work that includes pharmacy practice and/or that which involves improvement of process and/or outcomes for one or more actors in that process
- Through all the aforementioned, improve the engagement of scholars within and outside the discipline, in reading and using pharmacy practice research published across our spectrum of journals.
We are also examining mechanisms to help authors select the most appropriate journal to submit and also submit elsewhere (next most appropriate journal) if rejected or not deemed suitable by the initial journal submitted.