ISSN 1688-8375 printed version

ISSN 2393-6606  online version

ABOUT THE JOURNAL

Focus and scope

Enfermería: Cuidados Humanizados is published by the Universidad Católica del Uruguay, to spread the knowledge of the discipline and related sciences nationally and internationally. The journal accepts works related to Humanized Care, promoting interdisciplinary work from Nursing, Medicine, Nutrition, Physiotherapy, Anthropology, Psychology, Bioethics, Philosophy, and all related sciences. Since 2024, preprints are accepted.

It is a scientific, indexed and peer-reviewed publication. The journal is indexed on Latindex; distributed in Scielo, BVS, LILACS, Dialnet, EBSCO, Cuiden and MIAR databases; and registered in DOAJ, LatinREV and Timbó. In addition, the journal is a member of the Asociación Uruguaya de Revistas Académicas (AURA) and the Ibero-American Network of Scientific Editing in Nursing (RED Edit), and is also found on the social network X.

Enfermería: Cuidados Humanizados publishes original articles in Spanish, English and Portuguese. Since 2018, the journal has been published bilingually: it publishes the article in the original language and in English. The translations are requested from the authors once the article is accepted, and they must be prepared by an expert translator.

Section Policies

Editorial. This section includes comments and reflections on a novel topic related to care or health sciences in general. Editorials are usually written by order of the journal's editorial team, although the journal is open to proposals on topics and authors who can develop them.

Original articles. Research papers carried out with qualitative, quantitative or both methodologies, systematic reviews and integrative reviews that deal with any aspect related to care and other health issues are published in this section. The manuscript must not exceed 7,500 words (excluding bibliography and figures or tables). Up to 30 bibliographic references and up to 6 tables or figures are allowed. In the case of qualitative works and others, whose type and content of the study requires it, the number of words may be increased up to 8000, and the number of references up to 45. Up to 6 authors are allowed in this type of article. Peer-reviewed section in a double-blind system.

Brief originals. In this section, case reports and/or case series are published, with an extension of 3000 words (excluding tables, figures and references). It should be structured in: title, abstract, keywords, introduction, case description, discussion, conclusion and recommendations, and bibliographical references. Peer-reviewed section in a double-blind system.

Publication frequency

Since 2022, the journal Enfermería: Cuidados Humanizado is published in the continuous publication mode. The articles are published as their editing process is completed and are organized in two issues a year: the first from January to June and the second from July to December, completing an annual volume.

Funding sources

Enfermería: Cuidados Humanizados was created in 2012, and is currently part of the Departamento de Bienestar y Salud and the Vicerrectoría de Investigación y Desarrollo, of the Universidad Católica del Uruguay. It is financed by the Universidad Católica del Uruguay.

Publishing in Enfermería: Cuidados Humanizados has no cost for the authors. The costs of the editorial process are taken care by Universidad Católica del Uruguay; although the authors will be responsible for providing the translated version of the accepted manuscript, a translation that must be done by experts. The journal does not charge for subscriptions; access to the full text of the articles is free and open.

Open access policy

This journal provides open access to all its content. Under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), users have the right to view, download, store, print, search, index and create links to the texts, provided that the original source and the person in charge of its authorship are cited in all cases and situations.

Authors are free to archive their published article in institutional repositories and/or on their personal web pages, always mentioning the publication in Enfermería: Cuidados Humanizados with the corresponding data.

Following the Guidelines for Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) in Journal Policies and Practices, and in compliance with Level 1 of Guideline 2 (Data Transparency), authors are required to include in the articles that result from original research a section on "Data Availability" in which they report whether the dataset used in their research is available and, if so, where to access it. 

Editorial Process

• Manuscript reception and first-phase evaluation

The contributions of the authors are managed by the Scientific Editor and the Technical Editor under the advice of the Associate Editors. Once compliance with the formal requirements of the publication has been verified, it is analyzed in the first phase by the editorial team, who can: a) accept it for external review, b) suggest modifications or c) reject the submission in the first instance. This first phase takes 1-3 months, depending on the volume of articles received by the journal.

• Second phase evaluation, double-blind pairs

The articles are sent for evaluation to expert judges in the area, at the rate of two per work. When it comes to a border area in a science field, the manuscript is sent to the necessary amount of evaluators. In the evaluation process, extreme care is taken to maintain the confidentiality of authors-arbitrators (double-blind system). The journal has an article evaluation form, as a guideline for arbitration. Three outcomes can emerge from this phase: a) Publishable without changes, b) Publishable with changes, and c) Not publishable.

The rejection rate for 2023 was 62 %.

In all cases, the evaluators prepare a report that bases their opinion. The Editorial Board may ask for other assessments, in cases in which the conclusions of the designated evaluators are incompatible with each other or doubts arise regarding methodological aspects.

The evaluation process of each article takes an average of 3 months, which may vary depending on the content of the considerations or the need to consult with other experts. The assessment of the evaluators is analyzed by the Scientific Editor, who prepares a communication to the authors about the result of the evaluation. They must make the requested modifications within approximately 1 month. Ultimately, the Scientific Editor is responsible for the final decision on the acceptance or rejection of the articles. This decision is final.

• Translation and publication

Once the final version of the manuscript is accepted, authors are requested to provide an English translated version. The translation must be done by an expert translator who guarantees the quality of the work.

The Technical Team is responsible for the editing and layout of the manuscript and, if necessary, they will communicate with the authors to make adjustments prior to publication.

Once a manuscript has been accepted for publication, the Editorial Team reserves the right to decide in which order, number and volume it will be published.

Plagiarism detection policy

By submitting their articles, the authors declare that they are original and unpublished and that they are free from plagiarism, including self-plagiarism. Authors should indicate, in a footnote on the first page, if their articles are based on materials available in previous publications, repositories or on the web. The contents reused in the manuscripts must be duly referenced in accordance with the Author Guidelines.

To ensure the originality and unpublished nature of the articles, Enfermería: Cuidados Humanizados analyzes all the articles it receives with Crossref and Turnitin anti-plagiarism software.

In case of suspicion of plagiarism, the procedure is based on the recommendations of COPE, where the reviewers are committed to report possible fraud or plagiarism of the evaluated research. In positive cases of plagiarism, the corresponding actions will be taken to sanction non-compliance with the ethical principles to which the journal adheres.

In case of doubt about the detection of plagiarism in the articles, the policy of the journal is:

1. If there is plagiarism prior to the evaluation process, depending on the degree and severity, the article may be rejected or the pertinent modifications requested.
2. If there is plagiarism during the evaluation of the article, all authors of the article will be contacted, explaining the situation. The article may be rejected or the relevant modifications may be requested.

Ethical principles and good practices

Enfermería: Cuidados Humanizados adheres to universal ethical principles such as the contribution of the journal to society and in particular to the knowledge of the disciplines to the common good, equal opportunities to publish articles under equal conditions that comply with previously established regulations. It rejects any kind of individual or group discrimination, protects discretion and confidentiality by keeping the name of the authors of the works received, the name of the peers and the articles selected for publication, the veracity of the information provided and transparency in all stages of the selection and publication process of the selected articles. 

Everyone involved in the editorial process of Enfermería: Cuidados Humanizados (editors, authors, reviewers) must act in accordance with ethical standards to ensure compliance with best editorial practices and a commitment to the highest professional standards.

The Associate Editors undertake to objectively analyze all contributions received, and to comply with a procedure that ensures quality and transparency. The Associate Editors are responsible for selecting the appropriate reviewers for each article, as well as to ensure the confidentiality of the process. It is their duty to meet the deadlines stipulated to respond to each application. The Associate Editors must be alert to any complaint of an ethical nature, of conflicts of interest or claims of any kind on the postulated articles, and grant the authors the opportunity to defend themselves.

The authors have the obligation to guarantee the originality of their articles, as well as the transparency in the research process and the veracity of their results. The authors will attach a signed declaration stating that the work is of their authorship, unpublished and is not postulated simultaneously in other publications. Likewise, the authors are obliged to give attribution of credit to any person and any type of work on which they have based their work or parts of it, according to the format stipulated in the Author Guidelines. The authors must make explicit the existence of conflicts of interest, as well as any financing they have received for the realization of the work.

The reviewers arbitrate the articles voluntarily, with the mission of contributing to the improvement of the quality of the works, through an objective and constructive review. For this, they undertake to follow the evaluation guidelines provided by the Enfermería: Cuidados Humanizados and to comply with both the policies of the evaluation process and the stipulated deadlines for the task. The reviewers are responsible of alerting the Editorial Team about any conflict of interest or circumstance that may prevent them from carrying out the evaluation task in an appropriate and objective manner.

Digital preservation policy

Through the LOCKSS system (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe), the journal Enfermería: Cuidados Huamanizados is guaranteed a permanent and secure archive. LOCKSS is an open-source program developed by the Stanford University Library that allows libraries to preserve selected web journals by regularly searching registered journals to collect and archive newly published content. Each file is continuously validated against records from other libraries, so that any damaged or lost content can be restored. The articles have DOI (Digital Object Identifier) granted by the Crossref registration agency. Through the PKP Preservation Network, preservation is also provided for any journal that is in Open Journal Systems.