Journal of Patient Experience

This Journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics.

This Journal recommends that authors follow the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals formulated by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).

Please read the guidelines below then visit the journal’s submission site to upload your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned. Remember you can log in to the submission site at any time to check on the progress of your paper through the peer review process.

Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of Journal of Patient Experience will be reviewed.

As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the Journal and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere. Please see our guidelines on prior publication and note that Journal of Patient Experience will consider submissions of papers that have been posted on preprint servers; please alert the Editorial Office when submitting (contact details are at the end of these guidelines) and include the DOI for the preprint in the designated field in the manuscript submission system. Authors should not post an updated version of their paper on the preprint server while it is being peer reviewed for possible publication in the Journal. If the article is accepted for publication, the author may re-use their work according to the Journal's author archiving policy.

If your paper is accepted, you must include a link on your preprint to the final version of your paper.

If you have any questions about publishing with Sage, please visit the Sage Journal Solutions Portal.

Please Read the Manuscript Submission Guidelines below before submitting your manuscript here:
SUBMIT MANUSCRIPT

1. Open Access
2. Article processing charge (APC)
3. What do we publish?
   3.1 Aims & scope
   3.2 Article types
   3.3 Writing your paper
   3.3.1 Making your article discoverable 
4. Editorial policies
   4.1 Peer Review Policy
   4.2 Authorship
   4.3 Acknowledgements
   4.4 Funding
   4.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
   4.6 Research ethics and patient consent
   4.7 Reporting guidelines
   4.8 Research data
5. Publishing policies
   5.1 Publication ethics
   5.2 Contributor's publishing agreement
6. Preparing your manuscript
   6.1 Word processing formats
   6.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
   6.3 Supplemental material
   6.4 Reference style
   6.5 English language editing services
7. Submitting your manuscript
   7.1 How to submit your manuscript
   7.2 Title, keywords and abstracts
   7.3 ORCID
   7.4 Information required for completing your submission
   7.5 Permissions
8. On acceptance and publication
   8.1 Sage Production
   8.2 Continuous publication
   8.3 Promoting your article
9. Further information

1. Open Access

Journal of Patient Experience is an open access, peer-reviewed journal. Each article accepted by peer review is made freely available online immediately upon publication, is published under a Creative Commons license and will be hosted online in perpetuity. There is no charge for submitting a paper to the journal. See details below regarding the article processing charge. 

For general information on open access at Sage please visit the Open Access page or view our Open Access FAQs.

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2. Article processing charge (APC)

The APC model enables JPX to sustain the publication process and to continue forwarding the mission of enhancing patient experience. The APC enables JPX to continue offering free open access to all readers, rather than following a traditional subscription fee model that prohibits readership. If, after peer review, your manuscript is accepted for publication, a one-time article processing charge (APC) is payable. This APC covers the cost of publication and ensures that your article will be freely available online in perpetuity under a Creative Commons licence.

1. Research Articles: The APC is $1380 USD. 
2. Experience Case Reports: The APC is $900 USD.
3. Research Briefs: The APC is $900.
4. Healthcare Professional Perspectives: The APC is $900.
5. Healthcare Consumer Perspectives: There is no APC.
6. Letters to the Editor: There is no APC.

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3. What do we publish?

3.1 Aims & scope

Before submitting your manuscript to Journal of Patient Experience, please ensure you have read the Aims & Scope.

3.2 Article types

For instructions on providing ethics statements on your manuscript, please click here.

Thank you for considering to publish your article in the Journal of Patient Experience. Manuscripts submitted to JPX should be of interest to a broad audience and are accepted from a variety of professional disciplines. Information on word count and table/figure limits can be found below the paper types. JPX welcomes original manuscripts of the following types:

Research Articles: Research articles should present original research that describes outcomes, processes, or applications that enhance the patient experience. A range of methods, including qualitative research, quantitative research, and experimental studies are accepted. Research articles must utilize rigorous academic methodology and data analysis.

Include the following headings: Abstract, Introduction, Method, Results, Discussion, Limitations, Conclusion, and References.

Submission must include a numbered list of 3 – 5 key points or findings (appearing in the abstract).

Word count: 3,000 (excludes abstract, references, appendices, figures/tables and ethical statements). Abstract limit: 175 words. Tables/Figures limit: 4. Reference limit: 40. APC: $1200.

Research Briefs: Research briefs describe limited results of original research in an abbreviated format. These studies are not appropriate for full-length manuscripts but may report a new methodological approach or describe preliminary research results. For example, this format is appropriate for original studies with smaller sample sizes. The manuscript should address an important patient experience issue, clearly describe the implications of methodological limitations, and adhere to author guidelines. 

Include the following headings: Abstract, Introduction, Method, Results, Discussion, Limitations, Conclusion, and References.

Submission must include a numbered list of 3 – 5 key points or findings (appearing in the abstract).

Word count: 1,500 (excludes abstract, references, appendices, figures/tables and ethical statements). Abstract limit: 175 words. Tables/Figures limit: 2. Reference limit: 20. APC: $900.

Experience Case Report: The experience case report should describe practical improvement efforts relevant to a specific patient (or clinician) experience issue. We aim to publish reports that include pragmatic implementation details, examples, and lessons that may benefit improvement efforts at large. Please define the issue (i.e., problem / challenge) and describe how it was addressed (i.e., intervention / solution). Ideally, reports include evidence or outcomes data. The conclusion section should include a summary of key points that support the reader with practical utilization of the report. Unlike a clinical case study, the experience case report should not focus on a specific patient or health condition. 

Include the following headings: Abstract, Introduction to the Issue, Description of the Intervention, Evidence of Impact, Conclusion, and References. 

Submission must include a numbered list of 3 – 5 key points or findings (appearing in the abstract).

Word count: 1,500 (excludes abstract, references, appendices, figures/tables and ethical statements). Abstract limit: 175 words. Tables/Figures limit: 2. Reference limit: 20. APC: $1200.

Healthcare Professional Perspectives: Healthcare professional perspective provide commentary regarding current issues pertinent to the healthcare experience, written from the lens of a healthcare professional (including industry, organizational, or clinical voices). Perspectives provide a timely, new insight on implications within the broad domain of patient experience. Authors should be experts in their fields. The submission may include an element of opinion (but authors should support any claims with some level of evidence or citation) justified by evidence). Submissions avoid content aimed toward promotional efforts related to commercialization or vendors solutions. 

Include the following headings: Abstract, Introduction to the Issue, Key Factors for Consideration, Recommendations, Conclusion, and References.

Submission must include a numbered list of 3 – 5 key points or findings (appearing in the abstract).

Word count: 1,500 (excludes abstract, references, appendices, figures/tables and ethical statements). Abstract limit: 175 words. Tables/Figures limit: 1. Reference limit: 10. APC: $900.

Healthcare Consumer Perspectives: Healthcare consumer perspectives provide brief, thoughtful communications on current issues pertinent to the patient experience, written from a patient / family / consumer viewpoint. Perspectives provide a timely, new insight on implications within the broad domain of healthcare experience. Authors do not need expertise in the field, thought they must provide rationale and/or narrative to support opinions expressed. These are not research reports, or promotional pieces about an organization, product, or program. We encourage co-authored submissions  to represent the voices of both consumers and professionals. 

Include the following headings: Abstract, Introduction to the Issue, Key Factors for Consideration, Recommendations, Conclusion, and References.

Submission must include a numbered list of 3 – 5 key points or findings (appearing in the abstract). Note: APC fees are waived for this submission type.

Word count: 1,500 (excludes abstract, references, appendices, figures/tables and ethical statements). Abstract limit: 175 words. Tables/Figures limit: 1. Reference limit: 10. APC: $0.

Letters to the Editor: Letters to the Editor are sometimes considered for publication provided they do not contain material that has been submitted elsewhere. Potential conflicts of interest must be disclosed during submission. Letters in reference to a JPX article must be received within four weeks after publication of the article. 

Word count: 500. No abstract. Tables/Figures limit: 1. Reference limit: 5. APC: $0.

3.3 Writing your paper

The Sage Author Gateway has some general advice and on how to get published, plus links to further resources. Sage Author Services also offers authors a variety of ways to improve and enhance their article including English language editing, plagiarism detection, and video abstract and infographic preparation.

3.3.1 Making your article discoverable 

For information and guidance on how to make your article more discoverable, visit our Gateway page on How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online.

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4. Editorial policies

4.1 Peer review policy

Following a preliminary triage to eliminate submissions unsuitable for Journal of Patient Experience all papers are sent out for review. The covering letter is important. To help the Editor in his preliminary evaluation, please indicate why you think the paper suitable for publication.

The journal’s policy is to have manuscripts reviewed by two expert reviewers. Journal of Patient Experience utilizes a double-anonymized peer review process in which the reviewer and author’s names and information are withheld from the other. All manuscripts are reviewed as rapidly as possible, while maintaining rigor. Reviewers make comments to the author and recommendations to the Editor-in-Chief who then makes the final decision.

The Editor or members of the Editorial Board may occasionally submit their own manuscripts for possible publication in the journal. In these cases, the peer review process will be managed by alternative members of the Board and the submitting Editor / Board member will have no involvement in the decision-making process.

4.2 Authorship

Papers should only be submitted for consideration once consent is given by all contributing authors. Those submitting papers should carefully check that all those whose work contributed to the paper are acknowledged as contributing authors.

The list of authors should include all those who can legitimately claim authorship. This is all those who:

(i) Made a substantial contribution to the concept or design of the work; or acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data,
(ii) Drafted the article or revised it critically for important intellectual content,
(iii) Approved the version to be published,
(iv) Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content.

Authors should meet the conditions of all of the points above. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content.

When a large, multicenter group has conducted the work, the group should identify the individuals who accept direct responsibility for the manuscript. These individuals should fully meet the criteria for authorship.

Please note that AI chatbots, for example ChatGPT, should not be listed as authors. For more information see the policy on Use of ChatGPT and generative AI tools.

4.3 Acknowledgements

All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support. 

4.3.1 Third party submissions

Where an individual who is not listed as an author submits a manuscript on behalf of the author(s), a statement must be included in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript and in the accompanying cover letter. The statements must:

• Disclose this type of editorial assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input
• Identify any entities that paid for this assistance
• Confirm that the listed authors have authorized the submission of their manuscript via third party and approved any statements or declarations, e.g. conflicting interests, funding, etc.

Where appropriate, Sage reserves the right to deny consideration to manuscripts submitted by a third party rather than by the authors themselves.

4.3.2 Writing assistance

Individuals who provided writing assistance, e.g. from a specialist communications company, do not qualify as authors and so should be included in the Acknowledgements section. Authors must disclose any writing assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input – and identify the entity that paid for this assistance.

It is not necessary to disclose use of language polishing services.

Please supply any personal acknowledgements separately to the main text to facilitate anonymous peer review.

4.4 Funding

Journal of Patient Experience requires all authors to acknowledge their funding in a consistent fashion under a separate heading. Please visit the Funding Acknowledgements page on the Sage Journal Author Gateway to confirm the format of the acknowledgment text in the event of funding, or state that: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

4.5 Declaration of conflicting interests

It is the policy of Journal of Patient Experience to require a declaration of conflicting interests from all authors enabling a statement to be carried within the paginated pages of all published articles.

Please ensure that a ‘Declaration of Conflicting Interests’ statement is included in your cover letter, after any acknowledgements and prior to the references. If no conflict exists, please state that ‘The Author(s) declare(s) that there is no conflict of interest’.

4.6 Research ethics and patient consent

For instructions on providing ethics statements on your manuscript, please click here.

Medical research involving human subjects must be conducted according to the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki.

Submitted manuscripts should conform to the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, and all papers reporting animal and/or human studies must state in the methods section that the relevant Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board provided (or waived) approval. Please ensure that you have provided the full name and institution of the review committee, in addition to the approval number.

For research articles, authors are also required to state in the methods section whether participants provided informed consent and whether the consent was written or verbal.

Information on informed consent to report individual cases or case series should be included in the manuscript text. A statement is required regarding whether written informed consent for patient information and images to be published was provided by the patient(s) or a legally authorized representative. Please do not submit the patient’s actual written informed consent with your article, as this in itself breaches the patient’s confidentiality. The Journal requests that you confirm to us, in writing, that you have obtained written informed consent but the written consent itself should be held by the authors/investigators themselves, for example in a patient’s hospital record. The confirmatory letter may be uploaded with your submission as a separate file.

Please also refer to the ICMJE Recommendations for the Protection of Research Participants 

4.7 Reporting guidelines

The relevant EQUATOR Network reporting guidelines should be followed depending on the type of study. For example, all randomized controlled trials submitted for publication should include a completed CONSORT flow chart as a cited figure and the completed CONSORT checklist should be uploaded with your submission as a supplementary file. Systematic reviews and metanalyses should include the completed PRISMA flow chart as a cited figure and the completed PRISMA checklist should be uploaded with your submission as a supplementary file. The EQUATOR wizard can help you identify the appropriate guideline. 

Other resources can be found at NLM’s Research Reporting Guidelines and Initiatives.

4.8 Research data

The journal is committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research, and has the following research data sharing policy. For more information, including FAQs please visit the Sage Research Data policy pages.

Subject to appropriate ethical and legal considerations, authors are encouraged to:

• share your research data in a relevant public data repository
• include a data availability statement linking to your data. If it is not possible to share your data, we encourage you to consider using the statement to explain why it cannot be shared.
• cite this data in your research

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5. Publishing policies

5.1 Publication ethics

Sage is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics page on the Sage Author Gateway.

5.1.1 Plagiarism

Journal of Patient Experience and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarized other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.

5.1.2 Prior publication

If material has been previously published, it is not generally acceptable for publication in a Sage journal. However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for publication. Please refer to the guidance on the Sage Author Gateway or if in doubt, contact the Editor at the address given below.

5.2 Contributor's publishing agreement

Before publication Sage requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. Journal of Patient Experience publishes manuscripts under Creative Commons licenses. The standard license for the journal is Creative Commons by Attribution Non-Commercial (CC BY-NC), which allows others to re-use the work without permission as long as the work is properly referenced and the use is non-commercial. For more information, you are advised to visit Sage's OA licenses page.

Alternative license arrangements are available, for example, to meet particular funder mandates, made at the author’s request. 

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6. Preparing your manuscript

6.1 Word processing formats

Preferred formats for the text and tables of your manuscript are Word DOC, RTF, XLS. LaTeX files are also accepted. The text should be double-spaced throughout and with a minimum of 3cm for left and right hand margins and 5cm at head and foot. Text should be standard 10 or 12 point. Word and (La)Tex templates are available on the Manuscript Submission Guidelines page of our Author Gateway.

6.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics

Tables and Figures: All tables and figures must be supplied as separate files and numbered in the order in which they are mentioned in the text. Graphs may be supplied as Excel spreadsheets (one per sheet). Other line drawings should be supplied in a vector graphic file format (e.g. .eps) with a resolution of 800 dpi.

Photographic illustrations: Illustrations and photos should be rendered with at least 300 dpi and in TIFF or JPEG formats. The required dimensions for cover art are at least 5x7 inches. With the exception of cover art, all color images will be printed in black and white. Color images will appear in color online.

For more guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format, please visit Sage’s Manuscript Submission Guidelines.

Figures supplied in color will appear in color online.

6.3 Supplemental material

This journal is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc.) alongside the full-text of the article. These will be subjected to peer-review alongside the article. For more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplementary files, which can be found within our Manuscript Submission Guidelines page. 

6.4 Reference style

Journal of Patient Experience adheres to the AMA Manual of Style. View the guide to ensure your manuscript conforms to this style. Authors should try to limit references to those that are essential or most relevant.

6.5 English language editing services

We require that manuscripts meet standards of English language used for professional publication.

Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting to fit the journal’s specifications should consider using Sage Language Services. Visit Sage Language Services on our Journal Author Gateway for further information.

Authors might also consider utilizing the services of SPi, a non-affiliated company that offers Professional Editing Services to authors in their scholarly, scientific, technical, or medical manuscripts. SPi specializes in editing and correcting English-language manuscripts written by authors with a primary language other than English. Visit http://www.prof-editing.com for more information about SPi’s Professional Editing Services, pricing, and turn-around times, or to obtain a free quote or submit a manuscript for language polishing. Please be aware that Sage has no affiliation with SPi and makes no endorsement of the company.

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7. Submitting your manuscript

7.1 How to submit your manuscript

Journal of Patient Experience is hosted on Editorial Manager, a web based online submission and peer review system. Visit https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jpejournal to log in and submit your article online.

IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the journal in the past year it is likely that you will have had an account created. A tutorial on how to use the system is available.

Before electronic submission, JPX recommends that authors review the checklist below to ensure they have all the necessary items ready for submission. To facilitate anonymized peer review, the submission process will require that you create these documents as separate files which the system will then build into a PDF.

Checklist

1. Separate cover letter that includes a statement of disclosure of possible conflicts of interest
2. Separate title page should contain the full title of the manuscript, a short title, the author(s) name(s) and affiliation(s), and the name, postal and email addresses of the author for correspondence, the exact word count for the manuscript (not including appendices, figures/tables or the references list), and details of competing interests and other declarations.
3. Manuscript with unstructured abstract, if applicable and ethics statements*
4. Separate figure files, separate table files, separate supplementary files, if any
5. Separate personal acknowledgements, if any

*For instructions on providing ethics statements on your manuscript, please click here.

Authors can save their work in progress, proof and submit revisions, check on the status of their article, update personal information, and review their past submission records. Decisions are sent to authors via email. 

7.2 Title, keywords and abstracts

Please supply a title, short title, an abstract and keywords to accompany your article. The title, keywords and abstract are key to ensuring readers find your article online through online search engines such as Google. Please refer to the information and guidance on how best to title your article, write your abstract and select your keywords by visiting the Sage Journal Author Gateway for guidelines on How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online. 

7.3 ORCID

As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process Sage is a supporting member of ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID. ORCID provides a unique and persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher, even those who share the same name, and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities, ensuring that their work is recognized.

The collection of ORCID iDs from corresponding authors is now part of the submission process of this journal. If you already have an ORCID iD you will be asked to associate that to your submission during the online submission process. We also strongly encourage all co-authors to link their ORCID ID to their accounts in our online peer review platforms. It takes seconds to do: click the link when prompted, sign into your ORCID account and our systems are automatically updated. Your ORCID iD will become part of your accepted publication’s metadata, making your work attributable to you and only you. Your ORCID iD is published with your article so that fellow researchers reading your work can link to your ORCID profile and from there link to your other publications.

If you do not already have an ORCID iD please follow this link to create one or visit our ORCID homepage to learn more.

7.4 Information required for completing your submission

You will be asked to provide contact details and academic affiliations for all co-authors via the submission system and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match what appears on your manuscript. The affiliation listed on the manuscript should be the institution where the research was conducted. If an author has moved to a new institution since completing the research, the new affiliation can be included in a manuscript note at the end of the paper. At this stage please ensure you have included all the required statements and declarations and uploaded any additional supplementary files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).

7.5 Permissions

Authors are responsible for obtaining permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please visit our Frequently Asked Questions on the Sage Journal Author Gateway.

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8. On acceptance and publication

If your paper is accepted for publication after peer review, you will be asked to complete the contributor’s publishing agreement. There is no Article Processing Charge (APC) for Journal of Patient Experience. 

8.1 Sage Production

Your Sage Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will made available to the corresponding author via our editing portal Sage Edit, or by email to the corresponding author and should be returned promptly.  Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate.

8.2 Online publication

One of the many benefits of publishing your manuscripts in an open access journal is the speed to publication. Your article will be published online in a fully citable form with a DOI number as soon as it has completed the production process. At this time it will be completely free to view and download prior to its inclusion in a final journal issue which significantly reduces the lead time between submission and publication. Check the ‘Latest Articles’ tab on the journal website for the latest published content. Articles are batched every quarter into issues and are then available in the Archive.

8.3 Promoting your article

Publication is not the end of the process! You can help disseminate your paper and ensure it is as widely read and cited as possible. The Sage Author Gateway has numerous resources to help you promote your work. Visit the Promote Your Article page on the Gateway for tips and advice.

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9. Further information

Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the Manuscript Submission process should be sent to the Journal of Patient Experience Managing Editor as follows:

JPX.ManagingEditor@gmail.com 

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