National journals of physical rehabilitation medicine in Europe: a survey

The European Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine Journal Network (EPRMJN), a joint initiative between the European Society Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine (ESPRM) and the European Journal of Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine (EJPRM), has the aim to increase scientific knowledge among PRM specialists and foster collaboration among physical and rehabilitation medicine (PRM) journals. This article reports the results of a survey of national PRM journals in Europe we conducted to obtain an overview of the current state of PRM research in the European setting.

Every year 682 PRM papers are published in a total of 66 issues per 3 294 page in the 16 national journals that responded to our survey, out of the 21 published in 15 countries; 12 countries have no PRM journals and two did not respond. Some 94% of the journals responding to the survey have a research aim and 88% an educational aim; all journals use a peer-review process (75% blinded); on average, 58.8 submissions are received per year, of which 6.7% are invited papers; the rejection rate is 21.4%. The majority of papers report original research, and main topics are musculoskeletal and neurological rehabilitation.

Since the national journals published in Europe have a good peer review process and publish mainly original articles, it is possible that good research can be found. A major problem is the English language barrier to wider readerships, as many researchers publish only in their native language. The EPRMJN aims to discover this research and make it accessible to international audiences through systematic collection of articles appearing in the national journals of the EPRMJN and publication of content summaries on the ESPRM website.