About Critical Care

Scope

Critical Care - an online journal

Content overview

Archived content

Supplements

Peer review policy

Publishing policy

Scope

Critical Care - an online journal

Content overview

Archived content

Supplements

Peer review policy

Publishing policy

Scope

Critical Care - an online journal

Content overview

Archived content

Supplements

Peer review policy

Publishing policy

Scope

Critical Care - an online journal

Content overview

Archived content

Supplements

Peer review policy

Publishing policy

Scope

Critical Care is a high quality, peer-reviewed, international clinical medical journal. Critical Care aims to improve the care of critically ill patients by acquiring, discussing, distributing, and promoting evidence-based information relevant to intensivists.

The journal publishes commentaries, reviews, and research in all areas of intensive care and emergency medicine. Critical Care aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the intensive care field.

We provide our readers and authors with:

• An Impact Factor of 3.83
• Open access publication of research articles
• Fast, thorough, high quality peer review
• An initial decision on manuscript submission within 5 weeks
• Fast publication - online within 28 days
• High visibility - via PubMed and MEDLINE
• Online submission
• A widely read and influential journal - nearly 200,000 articles downloaded each month. Over 18,000 users receiving email alerts.

An international Editorial Board runs Critical Care, and the Editor-in-Chief is Jean-Louis Vincent of Brussels, Belgium. Critical Care is also affiliated with the Critical Care Canada Forum (CCCF).

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Critical Care - an online journal

All articles in Critical Care are published in full, online shortly after acceptance. Articles are published in PDF format suitable for printing, and a full text xml version that allows readers to:

• Link to the abstracts of articles from the reference list
• Download the reference list
• Search PubMed for other articles published by the authors
• Email the article to a friend
• Post a comment expressing their opinions on the article
• Find citations to the article via Google Scholar and ISI Web of Science

Online publication allows authors to include additional files such as films or large datasets. In addition to the journal content, the website provides several other facilities for readers:

• Email updates - register to receive regular updates and tables of contents of the latest articles published in Critical Care
• Search - search for articles in Critical Care, other journals published by BioMed Central, or the whole of PubMed.
• Search alerts - store searches and choose to receive new results by email
• Top 20 most accessed articles - keep up to date with what everyone else is reading
• RSS feed - have new articles delivered to your news headline reader

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Content overview

Critical Care publishes the following types of articles:

• Editorials
• Commentaries
• Reviews
• Research
• Reports
• Letters
• Archived content
• Supplements

See below for a brief description of each.

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Editorials

Editorials usually describe policy issues directly relevant to Critical Care and are written by select members of the Editorial Board.

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Commentaries

Commentaries are short, opinionated articles written by specialists to be read by the general intensivist community. The aim of a commentary is to highlight a topical issue, expand on the underlying themes, and suggest what should happen next. Commentaries are usually commissioned by the journal.
There are several types of commentaries:

1. General - Raises any issue relevant to the journal's scope (see above).
2. Research related - Accompanies any recently published research, either within Critical Care or elsewhere.
3. Medical ethics related - Discusses topical ethics issues.
4. Recently published papers - Provides a round-up of recent articles published within the field.

See the instructions for authors for more information.

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Reviews

Reviews provide a comprehensive, authoritative description of a certain aspect of health care relevant to intensive care and emergency medicine. Most are commissioned, although unsolicited reviews are welcome and are routinely peer reviewed.

There are two main types of reviews:

1. Bench-to-bedside reviews - Describe the science underlying clinical situations
2. Clinical reviews - Describe purely clinical situations

Whilst there is potential for overlap, the aim of dividing the review section in this way is to help readers find the type of material they are searching for. Each type of review is lead by a Section Editor. As well as the above review types we also publish

• Statistical reviews
• Pro/con debates
• Ethics roundtable debates

See the instructions for authors for more information.

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Research

Critical Care invites research articles of exceptional interest in any aspect of intensive care and emergency medicine.

To ensure the best possible service to authors and readers, we offer:

• a very fast publication schedule whilst maintaining rigorous peer-review
• continuous publication - articles are published online, with a full citation, as soon as they are ready for publication

Research articles in Critical Care are open access, which means they are universally and freely accessible via the Internet and deposited in at least one widely and internationally recognized open access repository (such as PubMed Central). Authors retain copyright to their articles, and grant any third party the right to use, reproduce and disseminate the article, subject to the terms of the copyright license. To cover the costs incurred by open access publishing we levy an article processing charge for each accepted article. Please click here for more information.

See the instructions for authors for more information.

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Reports

Critical Care aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the intensive care field by reporting on published books, websites and meetings relevant to intensive care and emergency medicine.

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Letters

We welcome letters on any article published in the journal. Letters are not usually sent out to peer-review but are reviewed by the Editorial Board. On occasion we may invite replies for publication in the same issue. Letters of topical interest are also considered, however we rarely publish original research or case reports in this section of the journal.
Letters commenting on articles in the journal should be a maximum of 250 words, and topical letters a maximum of 400 words, with 5 or fewer references. All letters are edited; authors are sent the edited version to approve before publication.

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Archived material

• Non peer reviewed research - Critical Care's depository for non-peer-reviewed research (preprints) was closed in March 2002. Manuscripts will, therefore, no longer be accepted for this section of the journal but a complete archive of already published material is available online and free to access without a subscription.
  
  
• Paper reports are now archival only and cover interesting articles published in other journals and items appearing on the web.

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Supplements

Publishing a supplement in Critical Care is an excellent way to disseminate conference material and scientific findings to a specialist audience. Critical Care accepts the following types of supplement: Proceedings, Review collections, and Meeting abstracts. The journal will also consider supplements containing research articles by special arrangement. All published supplements are fully searchable and freely accessible online and can also be produced in print. Articles published in Proceedings and Review collections are indexed by PubMed. Meeting abstracts are also included in PubMed, displayed by the title of the supplement. However, PubMed does not index individual abstracts.

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Peer review policy

All articles will be subject to immediate screening by the Editorial Board. Articles that do not meet the standards of the journal may be declined without further review. Appropriate articles will be sent to up to 4 referees who have agreed to assess the article rapidly. We will make every effort to reach decisions within 5 weeks of submission. If the referees have requested revisions, in general, only one revised version will be considered for further peer-review.

Authors are asked to provide names and contact details for 2-4 referees. However, final selection of referees is the responsibility of the Editorial Board.

All peer review is closed - authors are not given the names of the referees of their article.

Editorial Board members and referees are asked to declare any competing interests they may have in reviewing a manuscript.

On occasion, authors of rejected articles will be offered the opportunity to submit their research article to one of the other journals published by BioMed Central. Where relevant, the referee reports will be passed on to the second journal, which may expedite the peer review process. Referee reports are not passed on to any journal outside of BioMed Central.

If an author is not satisfied with the decision made on their manuscript, they are welcome to contact the Editorial Office with their appeal. A second opinion on the manuscript will be sought where appropriate.

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Publishing policies

Submission of an article to Critical Care implies that all contributors have read it and agree to its content. Material submitted to Critical Care must not have been simultaneously submitted for publication elsewhere.

Once an article is accepted, it is published in Critical Care immediately as a provisional PDF file, with a final citation, and will be included in PubMed. The article will subsequently be copyedited and published in both a fully browseable web form and as a formatted PDF; the article will then be available through Critical Care, BioMed Central and PubMed Central. Research articles are open access, and commentaries, reviews and reports are available via subscription. All articles become free to access online 12 months after publication. Letters and editorials are free to access immediately on publication.

With the exception of primary research articles, where the copyright rests with the authors as a default, copyright of material published in Critical Care belongs to the publisher, BioMed Central Ltd.

Critical Care offers a high quality reprint service. For more information see our publisher's reprints and permissions policy or contact us.

By being part of BioMed Central, Critical Care is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). For more information on COPE, see www.publicationethics.org.uk.

Discontinuation of Critical Care print issues
From January 2006 Critical Care will not be available in print and will only be published online. To subscribe or renew your subscription as an online only customer, use our order form. For more information contact our customer support team at info@ccforum.com.

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