Ethics of scientific publication

The Revista de la Sociedad Española del Dolor (Journal of the Spanish Pain Society) adheres to international ethical recommendations and understands that authors accept the ethical responsibility defined by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors.

Please consult the following links for information on ethical considerations in scientific publication: https://www.publicationethics.org/ and https://www.icmje.org/index.html .

Peer review

This journal uses a double-blind review system. The editor carries out an initial assessment of manuscripts to check that they fit the journal's objectives. If so, each manuscript is generally sent to at least two independent reviewers who evaluate the scientific quality of the manuscript. The editor is responsible for the final decision on the acceptance or rejection of the article for publication.

Double-blind review

This journal uses a double-blind review system, meaning that both authors and reviewers remain anonymous throughout the review process. For this reason, we ask that you include information as stipulated in the submission instructions for authors.

Rights of persons and animals

If the work described involves the participation of persons or animals, the author must ensure that it was carried out in accordance with the WHO Code of Ethics (Declaration of Helsinki) on experiments with humans. The manuscript should follow the recommendations for the conduct, reporting, editing and publication of scholarly work in medical journals, issued by the ICMJE, and should aspire to the inclusion of representative human populations in terms of sex, age and ethnic origin, as recommended therein.

The author must declare in the manuscript that informed consent was obtained from all subjects studied. The right to privacy of individuals must be respected at all times.

Experiments with animals must adhere to the ARRIVE guidelines and be conducted in accordance with the UK Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 and the related recommendations of EU Directive 2010/63/EU for experiments with animals, or the National Institutes of Health guide on the care and use of laboratory animals (NIH Publications No. 8023, revised 1978). The author should clearly indicate in the manuscript that these guidelines have been followed. The sex of the animals must also be stated, as well as, where applicable, the influence (or association) of sex on the study results.

Conflict of interest

All authors must disclose any personal or financial relationship with persons or organisations that could inappropriately influence (bias) their work. Examples of potential conflicts of interest include: employment by the organisation, consultancy services, stock ownership, remuneration, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations and grants or other funding.

In addition, grants, awards or financial support related to the work must be declared in the authors' conflict of interest statement which, if applicable, should be described in the cover letter using the template available on the journal's website and on the submission platform.

Download cover letter/conflict of interest form

If there is no conflict of interest, the following must be declared: "Conflicts of interest: There are no conflicts of interest." If the manuscript is accepted, this summary declaration will be published alongside the article.

Originality and anti-plagiarism policy

Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been previously published, that it is not under consideration for publication in any other medium, that its publication is authorised by all authors and expressly or tacitly by the responsible authorities of the institution in which the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published in any other medium in the same format, in English or in any other language, including electronic format, without the written consent of the copyright holder. To verify its originality, the manuscript may be examined using the Crossref Similarity Check service.

Clinical trial results

In accordance with the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, the journal will not consider as prior publication results present in the clinical trial registry of the primary study, provided they appear in the form of a table or a brief structured summary (fewer than 500 words). However, disclosing results under other circumstances (e.g. at investor meetings) is discouraged as this could jeopardise acceptance of the manuscript. Authors must report on all results registries that contain the submitted work or any other closely related work.

Description of randomised clinical trials

Randomised clinical trials must be described following the CONSORT guidelines. During manuscript submission, authors must submit the CONSORT checklist, accompanied by a flow diagram illustrating patient progress throughout the trial — i.e. recruitment, enrolment, randomisation, withdrawals and completion — as well as a detailed description of the randomisation procedure. The checklist and a flow diagram template are available on the CONSORT website.

Clinical trial registration

For publication in this journal, clinical trials must appear in a public trials registry, as recommended by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). Trials must be registered at the time of patient recruitment or before. The clinical trial registration number must be included at the end of the article abstract. A clinical trial is defined as a research study that prospectively assigns participants or groups of participants to one or more health interventions to evaluate their effects. A health intervention is any intervention that modifies a biomedical or health-related outcome (for example, drugs, surgical procedures, devices, behavioural treatments, dietary interventions and changes in the healthcare process). A health-related outcome is any biomedical or health-related parameter obtained from patients or participants, such as pharmacokinetic measurements and adverse events. Purely observational studies (those in which the assignment of medical interventions does not depend on the investigator) do not require registration.

Copyright and author rights

In the article submission form, authors will be asked to complete a "publication agreement".

Author rights

As an author, you or your employer or institution retain rights to reuse your work.

Open access

The Revista de la Sociedad Española del Dolor is an open access journal, meaning that all its content is freely accessible at no charge to the user or their institution. Users are authorised to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search or link to the full texts of articles in this journal without prior permission from the publisher or the author, in accordance with the BOAI definition of open access. Reuse of works may be carried out under the terms of the Creative Commons 4.0 licence (CC BY-NC-ND). Use of materials under the stated Creative Commons Licence is subject to authorisation by the SED, owner of the articles.

This journal has no charges for open access publication. The Society that owns the journal funds the publication costs.

Informed consent and patient data

Studies involving patients or volunteers require ethics committee approval and informed consent, which must be stated in the article. When an author wishes to include case data or other personal information, or images of patients and other persons in a publication, the appropriate permissions, consents and assignments must be obtained. The author must retain the written consents but is not required to send copies of these to the journal. Only if the journal specifically requests them under exceptional circumstances (for example, in the event of a legal issue) will the author need to provide copies of these or evidence that such consents were obtained.

Manuscript submission

Our manuscript submission system will guide you step by step through the process of entering your article details and attaching files. The system will create a summary of all files comprising the manuscript for the peer review process. The corresponding author will receive information about the review process for their manuscript by email.

Submit your article

The manuscript submission address is https://resed.es/index.php/resed/es/submission

Submission instructions

Please consult the manuscript submission instructions by clicking here.