About International Journal of Mental Health Systems

What is International Journal of Mental Health Systems?

International Journal of Mental Health Systems is an open access, online journal that publishes papers on all aspects of mental health system development.

Advances in understanding of, and treatments for, mental illness frequently do not benefit those who most need them because of poorly developed mental health systems. Internationally, there is increasing attention to mental health legislation and policy, mental health system financing and governance, mental health service design implementation and evaluation, human resource development, effective mental health systems research transfer, and the human rights of people with mental illness. International Journal of Mental Health Systems will be a home for the latest mental health system research, policy and debates, as well as for articles with educational intent that will build capacity for mental health system research and development.

Content overview

International Journal of Mental Health Systems considers the following types of articles:

• Research: reports of data from original research.
• Short reports: brief reports of data from original research, usually about 1500 words.
• Reviews: comprehensive, authoritative, descriptions of any subject within the scope of the journal.
• Case studies:: describe a major healthcare intervention, usually from a public health perspective. Case study articles that include a rigorous assessment of the processes and impact of the intervention as well as recommendations for future interventions will be considered favourably. Note that Case study articles should not describe an individual patient - authors should use the case report format for such descriptions.
• Commentaries: short, focused and opinionated articles on any subject within the journal's scope. These articles focus on specific issues and are about 800 words.
• Debate articles: present an argument that is not essentially based on practical research. Debate articles can report on all aspects of the subject including sociological and ethical aspects.

Peer review policies

• All peer review for International Journal of Mental Health Systems is closed, meaning that referees' confidentiality is maintained and referees reports are not made publicly available.
• A minimum of two reviews will be obtained for each submission.
• Reviewers are asked to declare any competing interests they may have in reviewing a manuscript.
• Only manuscripts that require specific statistical review will be sent to a statistician.
• If the reviewers are in disagreement they will be invited to discuss each other’s review and attempt to arrive at a consensus. If this fails another reviewer will be invited to review. The Editor-in-Chief will make the final decision on publication.
• A first decision will be made within 6 weeks of receipt of the submission.
• If an author is unhappy with, or formally appeals, an editorial decision, then the procedures outlined in the COPE Code of Conduct for Editors will be followed.

Edited by I H Minas, International Journal of Mental Health Systems is supported by an expert Editorial Board.

Publishing in International Journal of Mental Health Systems

All articles are listed in PubMed immediately upon acceptance (after peer review), and are covered by PubMed Central.

Articles in International Journal of Mental Health Systems should be cited in the same way as articles in a traditional journal. However, because articles in this journal are not printed, they do not have page numbers. Instead, they have a unique article number.

The following citation:

Int J Ment Health Syst 2004, 2:1

refers to article 1 from volume 2 of the journal.

As an online journal, International Journal of Mental Health Systems does not have issue numbers. Each volume corresponds to a calendar year.

To keep up to date with the latest articles from International Journal of Mental Health Systems, why not register to receive alerts? Registration also enables you to customise your subject areas of interest, store your searches, and submit your manuscripts.

Submission of manuscripts

Manuscripts should be submitted electronically to International Journal of Mental Health Systems using the online submission system. Full details of how to submit a manuscript are given in the instructions for authors.

General journal policies

International Journal of Mental Health Systems is published by BioMed Central, an independent publisher committed to ensuring peer-reviewed biomedical research is open access. That means it is freely and universally accessible online, it is archived in at least one internationally recognised free access repository, and its authors retain copyright, allowing anyone to reproduce or disseminate articles, according to the BioMed Central copyright and licence agreement. International Journal of Mental Health Systems however, has taken this further by making all its content open access.

International Journal of Mental Health Systems's articles are archived in PubMed Central, the US National Library of Medicine's full-text repository of life science literature, and also at INIST in France and in e-Depot, the National Library of the Netherlands' digital archive of all electronic publications. The journal is also participating in the British Library's e-journals pilot project, and plans to deposit copies of all articles with the British Library.

International Journal of Mental Health Systems is able to deliver summaries of frequently updated content via Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds. These are accessible via the orange "XML" button at the top of the list of recent articles or the list of most accessed articles. For more information about RSS feeds see our publisher's website.

For further information about general policies please see the instructions for authors.