Aims and Scope

The Journal of the Portuguese Society of Dermatology and Venereology (SPDV) is the official organ of the Portuguese Society of Dermatology and Venereology. The overriding criteria for publication are scientific merit and originality.

The Journal of Portuguese Society of Dermatology and Venereology (SPDV) is the official organ of the Portuguese Society of Dermatology and Venereology. It an open access single-blinded-peer-reviewed journal published in English and/or Portuguese that strives to publish high quality dermatologica science  with scientificmerit and originality as the overriding criteria for publication.  It includes, apart from coninuous medical education articles, editorials, reviews and original basic and clinical and translational investigation, clinical cases of special interest, short communications/letters to the editor and images/quiz cases within the field of Dermatology and Venereology.

The main objective of the journal is to spread dermato-venereological news and, therefore, contribute to improve the understanding, management and treatment of skin disease and patient care among physicians and other healthcare workers and scientists in Portugal and Portuguese speaking countries, but also in every country in the world. The journal accepts submissions within the main fields of Dermatology and Venereology, including clinical and laboratory investigations, diagnostic and therapeutic procedures, namely epidemiology, healthcare resources, pediatric dermatology, contact dermatitis & cutaneous allergy, dermatological surgery & interventional dermatology, auto-immune and immune-mediated skin diseases, dermatopathology, photobiology and photodermatology, dermnoscopy, dermatooncology, dermocosmetics, sexually transmitted diseases, cutaneous biology and basic research in Dermatology.

It is published in paper and on digital formats, with increasing tendency for "ahead of-print" online publications.  All articles published since 2011 can now be accessed online.

All articles in this journal are Open Access and meet the requirements of funding bodies or academic institutions. Each article published in the Journal is published under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). Articles can be read, downloaded, printed, and shared. The online version can be accessed at https://revista.spdv.com.pt

The J Port Soc Dermatol Venereol is signatory of the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, issued by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE Recommendations), and follows the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines.

 

Publishing with J Port Soc Dermatol Venereol

Reasons for publishing 

• Speed: We offer fast publication while maintaining rigorous peer review;
• Quality: We are committed to the highest standards of peer review.
• Indexed in Repositório Científico de Acesso Ab­erto em Portugal (Scientific Open Access Repository of Portugal - RCAAP);
• Indexed in ÍndexRMP; 
• Open Access – maximum visibility: 
• No Costs: No publication charges.

Peer Review Process

All articles published in the Journal of SPDV undergo thorough peer review. Editor-in-Chief and Co-Editor will treat all manuscripts submitted in confidence. Reviewers are therefore required to respect the confidentiality of the peer review process and not reveal any details of a manuscript or its review, during or after the peer-review process, beyond the information released by the Journal of SPDV. If reviewers wish to involve a colleague in the review process they should first obtain permission from the Editor.
The acceptance criteria for all papers are the quality, clarity and originality of the research and its significance to our readership. Manuscripts should be written in a clear, concise, direct style. The manuscript should not have been published, in whole or in part, nor submitted for publication elsewhere.
All submitted manuscripts are initially reviewed by the Editor-in-Chief or the Co-editor and can be rejected at this stage, without being sent to reviewers. Final acceptance or rejection rests with the Editor-in-Chief or Co-Editor, who reserves the right to refuse any material for publication.
The Journal of SPDV follows a rigorous single-blind peer review. Manuscripts are sent to outside reviewers selected from an extensive database.
All manuscripts that do not comply with the instructions for authors can be rejected before being reviewed by the scientific advisors. Final acceptance is the responsibility of the Editor-in-Chief.
Letters to the Editor or Editorials will be evaluated by the Editorial Board, but also may be requested an external review.

In the evaluation, the articles can be:
a) Accepted without changes
b) Accepted after minor modifications suggested by scientific advisors
c) Request for significant changes for undergoing a new review process
d) Rejected

Upon receipt of the manuscript, the Editor-in-chief or Co-Editor sends it to two reviewers if the manuscript is in accordance with the instructions to authors and meets the editorial policy.
Within 21 days, the reviewer should respond to the Editor-in-chief or Co-Editor indicating their comments on the manuscript subject to revision, and suggestion regarding acceptance, revision or rejection of the work. Within 10 days the Editorial Board will make a decision which may be: accept the manuscript without modifications; sending reviewers' comments to authors proceed in accordance with the stated; rejection.
When changes are proposed Authors have 30 days (which period may be extended at the request of the authors) to submit a new revised version of the manuscript, incorporating the comments of the reviewers and of the editorial board. Answering all the questions and a revised version of the article, with the amendments inserted highlighted with a different colour.
The Editor-in-chief or Co-Editor have 10 days to make the decision on the new version: reject or accept the new version, or refer it to a new appreciation for one or more reviewers.
In case of acceptance, in any of the previous phases, the same will be communicated to the Corresponding Author.
In the authors proof revision phase will not be accepted substantive changes to manuscript. The inclusion of these changes can motivate the rejection of the manuscript by decision of the Editor-in-Chief.
In all cases the opinions of the reviewers will be fully communicated to authors within 6-8 weeks from the date of receipt of the manuscript.

Publication Frequency

The journal has four issues every year.

Open Access Policy

This journal offers immediate free access to its content, following the principle that providing free scientific knowledge to the public provides greater global democratization of knowledge.

Editorial Policies

Editorial Freedom

It is the responsibility of the SPDV to appoint and dismiss the Editorial Board of the Journal of SPDV, as well as to establish a contract at the time of their appointment, in which their rights, duties and authority are described, as well as general terms of nomination and conflict resolution mechanisms. The performance of the Editorial Board is evaluated by mutually agreed indicators.

The Journal of SPDV adopts the World Association of Medical Editors’ definition of editorial freedom, which states that editors-in-chief assumes complete authority over the editorial content of their journal and the timing of publication of that content. The SPDV, as the owner of the journal, does not interfere in the evaluation, selection, scheduling, or editing of individual articles either directly or by creating an environment that strongly influences decisions. The Editor-in-chief bases editorial decisions on the quality of the articles submitted for publication and its importance to the readers of the Journal of the SPDV and not in the any business implications they may have for the journal. The Editor is free to express critical but responsible views on all aspects of medicine without fear of reprisals.

Revenue sources

The journal is supported by the Portuguese Society of Dermatology and Venereology and by advertising. There are no article processing charges, no submission fees, no subscriptions nor other organizational supports.

The Portuguese Society of Dermatologu+y and Venereology does not influence the selection or editing of submissions. Editorial decisions are not influenced by commercial factors. Decisions about individual papers remain separate from the sale of advertising.

General Overview

Submission of a manuscript to the J Port Soc Dermatol Venereol implies that all authors have read and agreed to its content and that the manuscript conforms to the journal’s policies.

Manuscripts submitted for publication should be prepared in accordance with the “Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals” of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), updated in December 2015. This document is available at http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/.
The Journal supports COPE (the Committee on Publication Ethics), which provides a forum for publishers and editors of scientific journals to discuss issues relating to the integrity of the work submitted to or published in their journals.

 

Standards of Reporting

The Journal advocates complete and transparent reporting of biomedical and biological research. We strongly recommend that authors adhere to the guidelines on data reporting established by the Enhancing the QUAlity and Transparency Of health Research (EQUATOR) network (http://www.equator-network.org). Checklists are available for a number of study designs, including:

• Randomized controlled trials (CONSORT)
• Systematic reviews and meta-analyses* (PRISMA) and protocols (PRISMA-P)
• Observational studies (STROBE)
• Case reports (CARE)
• Qualitative research (COREQ)
• Diagnostic/prognostic studies (STARD )
• Economic evaluations (CHEERS)
• Pre-clinical animal studies (ARRIVE)
• Clinical Practice Guidelines (AGREE)
• Quality improvement studies (SQUIRE)
• Study protocols (SPIRIT)

*Authors of systematic reviews should also provide a link to an additional file from the ‘methods’ section, which reproduces all details of the search strategy. 

The acceptance criteria for all papers are the quality and originality of the research and its significance to our readership. Except where otherwise stated, manuscripts are single-blind peer reviewed by two anonymous reviewers and the Editor. Final acceptance or rejection rests with the Editor, who reserves the right to refuse any material for publication.

Manuscripts should be written in a clear, concise, direct style, so that they are intelligible to the professional reader who is not a specialist in the particular field. Where contributions are judged as acceptable for publication on the basis of scientific content, the Editor and the publisher reserve the right to modify typescripts to eliminate ambiguity and repetition and improve communication between author and reader. If extensive alterations are required, the manuscript will be returned to the author for revision.

Manuscripts that do not comply with the instructions for authors may be returned for modification before being reviewed.

Authorship

To give appropriate credit to each author, the individual contributions of authors should be specified in the manuscript.
The Journal defines an author as a person who has made substantive intellectual contributions to a published study to take public responsibility for it.
We recommend that the authors adhere to the authorship criteria of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). According to the ICMJE guidelines, to qualify as an author one should have:

1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
2. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
3. Final approval of the version to be published; AND
4. 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.

Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group, alone, does not usually justify authorship.
Any person who does not meet all four of the listed criteria does not qualify as an author and should not be designated as such. The final author line up and order should be determined by all authors before submission and may not be changed without a written explanation and signed permission of all authors.
Each manuscript must have a corresponding author, who assumes full responsibility for the integrity of the submission as a whole, from inception to published article. The Journal reserves the right to clarify each author’s role, based on information collected from authors in connection with their submission.

Acknowledgements: All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed (with their written permission) in an ‘Acknowledgements’ section with a description of their individual contributions. This requirement covers any editorial or authorship contributions made on behalf of outside organizations, persons, funding bodies, or persons hired by funding bodies.

Role of the Funding Source: All sources of funding should be declared as an acknowledgment at the end of the text. At the end of the Methods section, under a subheading "Role of the funding source", authors must describe the role of the study sponsor(s), if any, in study design; in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the paper for publication. If there is no Methods section, the role of the funding source should be stated as an acknowledgment.  If the funding source(s) had no such involvement then this should be stated.

Role of Medical Writer: When medical writers or editing services were used, their activities should be acknowledged, along with their source funding source. This information should be added to the Acknowledgments section. We require signed statements from any medical writers or editors declaring that they have given permission to be named in the Acknowledgments section.

 

Patient and Other Consents

Appropriate written consents, permissions, and releases must be obtained where you wish to include any case details, personal information, and/or images of patients or other individuals in the J PORT SOC DERMATOL VENEREOL  in order to comply with all applicable laws and regulations concerning privacy and/or security of personal information. Studies on patients or volunteers need approval from an ethics committee and informed consent from participants. These should be documented in your paper.
"Blackout" bars or similar devices do not anonymise patients in clinical images: appropriate consent is needed.

Duplicate Submission and Publication

 

Fast-Track Publication

A fast-track system is available for urgent and important manuscripts that meet the Journal’s requirements for rapid review and publication.
Authors may apply for fast-track publication through the manuscript submission process, clearly indicating why their manuscript should be considered for accelerated review and publication. The Editorial Board will decide whether the manuscript is suitable for fast-track or regular publication and will communicate their decision within 48 hours. If the Editor-in-Chief finds the manuscript unsuitable for fast-track publication, the manuscript may be proposed for the normal review process, or the authors can withdraw their submission. An editorial decision on manuscripts accepted for fast-track review will be made within five working days.
If the manuscript is accepted for publication, the Journal will aim to publish it online within 16 days.

Signatures

At the external peer review stage you will need to send signed copies of the following statements:

• Authors' contributions
• Conflicts of interest statements
• Acknowledgments — written consent of cited individual
• Personal communications — written consent of cited individual
• Use of copyright-protected material — signed permission statements from author and publisher

After Submission

Proof Revision

The corresponding author will receive by email a PDF file of the proof copy of their article, which should be corrected (if necessary) and returned as quickly as possible, ideally within 48 hours. Please use this proof only for checking the typesetting, editing, completeness and correctness of the text, tables and figures. Significant changes to the article as accepted for publication will only be considered at this stage with permission from the Editor. It is important to ensure that all corrections are returned in one communication; inclusion of any subsequent corrections cannot be guaranteed. Proofreading is solely the responsibility of the corresponding author.
Changes to proofs should be made using the Comment functions in Adobe Reader only. Do not re-save the PDF in Adobe Acrobat or other editing software.
The corresponding author will receive, at no cost, an offprint of the published article in PDF form.

Corrections

After publication, further changes can only be made in the form of an erratum.
If an error is noted in a published article requiring publication of a correction, the correction will appear as an erratum on a numbered page listed in the Table of Contents.

Retractions

The reviewers and the editors initially assume that authors are reporting work based on honest observations. However, if substantial doubt arises about the honesty or integrity of work, either submitted or published, the editor will inform the authors of the concern, seek clarification, and pursue the issue with the author’s sponsoring body and/or employing authority. Consequently, if the sponsoring body and/or employers find a published paper to be fraudulent, the journal will print a retraction. If, however, this method of investigation does not result in a satisfactory conclusion, the editor may choose to conduct his or her own investigation, and may choose to publish an expression of concern about the aspects of the conduct or integrity of the work. The validity of previous work by the author of a fraudulent paper cannot be assumed. Editors may ask the author’s institution to assure them of the validity of earlier work published in their journal or to retract it. If this is not done, editors may choose to publish an announcement expressing concern that the validity of previously published work is uncertain.

Final Note

For further clarification of the above matters authors should consult the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals available at http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/.

Advertising Policy

1. All submitted Advertising Content is subject to approval by the editorial team and must comply with the points below.

• All claims contained in Advertising Content must be justified by relevant supporting references, as recommended by the ‘Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals’ (ie from a peer-reviewed source, such as journals, supplements or presentations at recognised scientific conferences). “Data on file” is acceptable provided the documentation is produced if requested, which it may be in cases of clinical uncertainty. For online Advertising Content, such reference must appear on either the banner advertisement itself or the first webpage to which the banner is linked. 
• Supporting reference material may be required in exceptional circumstances.
• Generic name and prescribing information of drugs must be provided within the Advertising Content. For online Advertising Content, such information must appear on either the banner advertisement itself or the first webpage to which the banner is linked.
• Advertisers must highlight on submission any non-standard advertisement/insert format — ie, paper quality, size, flash, animated gifs, etc. 
• Advertising Content for tobacco, alcohol, recreational drugs or any illegal products will not be accepte
• Advertising Content which may be confused with the scientific or opinion based content of the Journals or the Website will not be accepted
• Print advertising features must carry the statement ‘Advertising Feature’ in a font size at least one-half that of the largest font size used in the advertisement. If for any reason, in its professional opinion, the editorial team feel it would be appropriate, it will seek rapid peer review of the contents of an Advertising Feature in order to inform its final decision.
• Commercial banner advertising must be clearly identifiable as such and the name of the advertiser should appear on the banner

2. In all editions of J Port Soc Dermatol Venereol inserts must not break editorial text or appear between the cover and inside contents.

3. Judgment on the suitability of all Advertising Content is based on the editorial integrity, profile, and reputation of J Port Soc Dermatol Venereol and the Website. Advertising Content must be in keeping with the professional and scholarly nature of J Port Soc Dermatol Venereol and must comply with all relevant laws, regulations and industry codes, including without limitation the ABPI Code. The principle of maintaining editorial independence from commercial influence will underlie decision-making. J Port Soc Dermatol Venereol do not allow advertising to influence editorial decisions: the editorial content of each issue and the Website is decided independently of the advertising planned for that issue. Details of  J Port Soc Dermatol Venereol or the Website’s editorial content or authorship are not available to advertisers prior to publication. J Port Soc Dermatol Venereol will not knowingly solicit or accept advertising against specific articles, whether original or commissioned. (On rare occasions an advertisement may have been approved and booked for an issue or for the Website that serendipitously contains an article on a related subject; publication in such circumstances shall be allowed unless it is judged by the editor that  J Port Soc Dermatol Venereol reputation is or might be adversely affected). Readers must be able to distinguish clearly between advertising and editorial material. Targeted advertising may be accepted for Website search alerts, but only under strictly limited circumstances.

4. If approval is in doubt, the advertising department will inform the advertiser of the reasons, the action to be taken, and the estimated time of delay.

Sponsors

Costs are covered by the Portuguese Society of Dermatology and Venereology, and publicity mostly from the pharmaceutical industry according to the following advertising policy https://revista.spdv.com.pt/index.php/spdv/about. It is not allowed the influence of advertising on editorial decisions.

• Sociedade Portuguesa de Dermatologia e Venereologia

Journal History

The Journal of the Portuguese Society of Dermatology and Venereology is the oldest Portuguese medical specialized journal. Founded in 1942, the Journal publishes 4 issues per year for the last 71 years without interruption. The Journal is property and the official organ of the Portuguese Society of Dermatology and is distributed with no cost to all members of this society. Previous editors were Juvenal Esteves, Meneres Sampaio, F Cruz Sobral, Artur leitão, António Poiares Bpatista, António Cabral Ascenção, Manuel Marques Gomes, Augusto Mayer-da-Silva and Gabriela Marques Pinto (1998-2020).

The Journal was initially entitled as “Trabalhos da Sociedade Portuguesa de Dermatologia e Venereologia”, but since July 2011 the lay-out of the Journal has been improved and the name has been changed to “Journal of the Portuguese Society of Dermatology and Venereology” to fit the international standards of medical journals.

The articles published from the Number 1 of the Volume 69 (2011) onwards, use the identifier DOI.