About Chiropractic & Osteopathy

What is Chiropractic & Osteopathy?

Chiropractic & Osteopathy is an open access, peer-reviewed online journal that aims to provide chiropractors, osteopaths and related health professionals with clinically relevant, evidence-based information.

Chiropractic & Osteopathy are two distinct complementary health care professions that share a relatively broad diagnostic practice and treatment scope, emphasizing the structure and function of the body's musculoskeletal framework (especially the spine). The practices of chiropractic and osteopathy are closely associated with spinal manual therapies including manipulation, which is a key intervention. The range of services provided can also include massage, mobilisation, physical therapies, lifestyle and dietary counselling, plus a variety of other therapeutic and rehabilitation approaches.

Chiropractic & Osteopathy is a continuation of the title Australasian Chiropractic & Osteopathy, previously published by the Chiropractic & Osteopathic College of Australasia (COCA), which existed to advance and add to the body of research and scientific knowledge of the practices of chiropractic and osteopathy. Chiropractic & Osteopathy continues to serve as a critical resource in this field but, as an open access publication, is more readily available to practitioners, researchers and clinicians worldwide.

Content overview

Chiropractic & Osteopathy considers the following types of articles:

• Research: reports of data from original research.
• Reviews: comprehensive, authoritative, descriptions of any subject within the scope of the journal. These articles are usually written by opinion leaders that have been invited by the Editorial Board.
• Case reports: reports of clinical cases that can be educational, describe a diagnostic or therapeutic dilemma, suggest an association, or present an important adverse reaction. It is important to note that case reports highlighting preventive or therapeutic intervention will, as a rule, not be published, because establishing the clinical merits of either requires stronger evidence.
• Commentaries: short, focused and opinionated articles on any subject within the scope of the journal. These articles are usually related to a contemporary issue, such as recent research findings, and are often written by opinion leaders.
• Database articles: describe a new database or a substantial improvement of an existing database.
• 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.
• Hypotheses: short articles presenting an untested original hypothesis backed solely by previously published results rather than any new evidence.
• Methodology articles: present a new experimental method, test or procedure. The method described may either be completely new, or may offer a better version of an existing method.
• Short reports: brief reports of data from original research.
• Study protocols: describe proposed or ongoing research, providing a detailed account of the hypothesis, rationale, and methodology of the study.

Peer review policies

• Peer review in Chiropractic & Osteopathy is designed to ensure that published articles are scientifically sound. The submitted manuscript will be sent to two external experts for evaluation of scientific significance and validity.
• Peer reviewers will have three possible options for each manuscript: accept, accept with revision, and reject. Peer reviewers are asked to justify their decision.
• Based on the critiques of the reviewers, the authors may choose to revise their manuscript and resubmit it for an additional review. Chiropractic & Osteopathy allows authors a maximum of two revisions of a manuscript.

Edited by Bruce F Walker, Chiropractic & Osteopathy is supported by an expert Editorial Board.

Publishing in Chiropractic & Osteopathy

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

Articles in Chiropractic & Osteopathy 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:

Chiropr Osteopat 2004, 2:1

refers to article 1 from volume 2 of the journal.

As an online journal, Chiropractic & Osteopathy does not have issue numbers. Each volume corresponds to a calendar year.

To keep up to date with the latest articles from Chiropractic & Osteopathy, 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 Chiropractic & Osteopathy using the online submission system. Full details of how to submit a manuscript are given in the instructions for authors.

General journal policies

Chiropractic & Osteopathy 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. Chiropractic & Osteopathy however, has taken this further by making all its content open access.

Chiropractic & Osteopathy'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.

Chiropractic & Osteopathy 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.