About the Journal

Acta Médica Costarricense (AMC) is the official scientific publication of the the Colegio de Médicos y Cirujanos de Costa Rica (College of Physicians and Surgeons of Costa Rica). Its purpose is to disseminate professional and scientific advances in the field of biomedical sciences in Costa Rica and the world.

The Journal publishes quarterly unpublished papers related to biomedical sciences that can be originals, reviews, opinions, brief communications, letters to the editor, and editorials. AMC is open access and is aimed at the general medical audience. Manuscripts submitted for consideration for publication must pass the first review by the Editorial Committee (EC) and a review by external peers, who will be anonymous and specialists in the subject of the article.

Articles accepted for publication in AMC become the property of the Colegio de Médicos y Cirujanos de Costa Rica (College of Physicians and Surgeons of Costa Rica).

Peer review process

Manuscripts received for publication in AMC will have the first review to check if it fits the coverage of the Journal and meet the publication standards for authors.

After passing this first stage, it is sent to two external reviewers in the area in which the article deals (belonging to the national or international medical and scientific community and recognized in the field) to evaluate the quality and technical and scientific relevance of the proposed work. Manuscripts will be reviewed anonymously by at least 2 experts in the object of study or methodology used.

The editorial committee, after analyzing the external and internal reports, reserves the right to accept or reject the articles for publication, as well as to introduce stylistic modifications and shorten the texts, if it deems it necessary, committing itself to respect the original content.

The evaluation process is double-blind, that is, the identity of the authors is kept anonymous for the external reviewers and that of the reviewers for the authors. The following evaluation guidelines are used to carry out this evaluation.

Once the criteria of the reviewers have been received, the Editorial Committee decides whether to (a) reject the article, (b) request modifications, or (c) publish it.

The papers that are reviewed and are considered to require modifications (b) before publication, will be sent to the authors with the evaluation reports of the reviewers, anonymously, so that they can make the appropriate corrections or replicas. A period of 15 calendar days will be granted to make the corresponding corrections.

Authors of articles accepted for publication will receive the proofs for correction by e-mail in PDF format. Corrected proofs must be returned to the editorial committee secretariat within 48 hours of receipt. Only minor corrections may be made to the content of the original manuscript.

Once the final version is approved, it is sent to print and published on the Journal's website.

Frequency of publication

The Journal is published 4 times a year (January-March, April-June, July-September, and October-December).

Open Access Policy

The texts published in Acta Médica are available free of charge on our website and can also be downloaded from the SciELO link.

Our articles are licensed under a Creative Common Attribution-NonCommercial - Share-Alike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license, the material may be shared, copied, and redistributed in any way, or format for any purpose.

The Journal does not charge for receiving (article submission fee, SF), reviewing, or publishing (article publishing charge, APC) articles.

In terms of digital preservation policy, our Journal uses the CLOCKSS Archive system for the digital preservation of publications.

Copyright Policy

Acta Médica Costarricense abides by Law No. 6683 Law on Copyright and Related Rights of the Republic of Costa Rica and its amendment in Law 7979.

AMC reserves the copyright of published articles, so authors must submit a Letter of Assignment of Authorship of their articles under the terms requested in the Guidelines for Authors.

Articles published in Acta Médica are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial - Share-Alike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license.

Ethical Principles and Best Practices in Biomedical Research

ETHICAL PRINCIPLES

The Journal Acta Médica Costarricense (AMC) is governed by the principles established in the document "Recommendations for the conduct, reporting, editing, and publication of scholarly work in medical Journals", published by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).

The AMC Journal adheres to the biomedical ethical principles set out in the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights, the Declaration of Helsinki on Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects and its amendments (World Medical Association), the International Ethical Guidelines for Health-Related Research Involving Human Subjects of the Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS), in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO), and the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Research conducted in Costa Rica must comply with the Biomedical Research Regulatory Law (No. 9234) and its regulations, and researchers must be authorized to conduct biomedical research by the National Health Research Council (CONIS).

Conflicts of interest in the articles must be declared in the letter of assignment and, if any, must be detailed in an accompanying document.

AMC Use and Reuse Policy

The ideas, procedures, methods of operation, or concepts expressed in the articles are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the point of view of the Editorial Board of the AMC Journal, nor the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Costa Rica.

Any partial or total reproduction of the contents or images of the publication is authorized, including electronic storage, as long as it is for strictly academic and non-profit purposes, invariably citing the source and giving the authorial and publication credits to the AMC Journal.

In this sense, the authors who publish in AMC Journal can distribute, copy, remix, retouch, read, download, print, search and create from their work, always in a non-commercial way, indicating the credits to the Journal and its authors; likewise, they can share their work under the same conditions. The Creative Common Attribution-NonCommercial - Share-Alike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license, applies.

Authors are encouraged to self-archive the articles they publish in the AMC Journal, both in institutional repositories and in personal web pages, with due reference to the Journal. The deposit of pre-prints in related repositories that allow it is also authorized.

About the type of access offered by AMC Journal

The AMC Journal has as its policy, the free and open distribution of its contents, through electronic means. It does not impose payment to the authors for the submission of their manuscripts, nor the process of arbitration or publication.

Responsibilities of the authors

Authors of manuscripts accepted for publication by the AMC Journal are responsible for their content. Therefore, articles that include people who have not participated in the entire process carried out in the research that gives rise to them will not be accepted, following the four criteria set out in the recommendations of the ICMJE at http://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf.

Authors must apply the instructions to authors required by this Journal to their full extent, including the delivery of the documents indicated therein. Those who publish in the AMC Journal should know that the use of data and information from other authors without citing them in the document and without including them in the list of bibliographical references, as well as the falsification of words to assume them as their own, are qualified as plagiarism, so their text will not be taken into account for publication. The Journal will apply software for plagiarism control.

In all cases, the bibliographic sources of the scientific references that contribute to the work presented must be cited and referenced completely and adequately. Also, the authors must cite in the text all the financial sources on which they relied, as well as declare any economic conflict of interest that could influence the final results presented in the manuscript.

Responsibilities of the editor

The AMC Journal guarantees that, upon receipt of the manuscripts sent by the authors, each manuscript will first be reviewed to confirm that it complies with the instructions to authors that the Journal makes available; then it will go through a process of evaluation by anonymous peers, double-blind and confidential. If the document received does not comply with the instructions to authors, the case will be referred to the Editorial Board to decide whether to reject it ad portas.

The editor of the Journal is the person who initiates and coordinates the manuscript evaluation process, and should therefore maintain confidentiality throughout the process. He/she will be responsible for acknowledging receipt of the manuscript and will always be available to communicate with the main author, as well as to communicate the decision of the Editorial Board or any necessary changes to the text. In addition, he/she must inform the Editorial Board of any anomaly detected during the process, to make the appropriate decisions.

Also, the editor of the AMC Journal will ensure that the same people who appear as authors are maintained throughout the review process so that none of these people are removed or changed.

The personal data provided by the authors to the Journal will not be shared or used for any purpose outside the Journal; therefore, the maintenance of the secured data is the responsibility of the editor.

Responsibilities of reviewers

The AMC Journal maintains a group of reviewers who, in their field of expertise, dedicate their efforts to ensure the quality of the manuscripts submitted. These people declare, in advance, that they do not maintain any relationship with the editorial team, and warn that they recuse themselves from their participation when there is any interest that causes conflict in their work, either because of the people with whom they are related or because of the information contained in the manuscript. None of these persons will use the manuscripts they review for any purpose other than evaluation; in other words, the review process will be carried out in complete confidentiality.

Those who agree to review a manuscript must commit themselves to strictly comply with the deadline established by the Journal, as well as to notify the editor if they face any limitation to carry out their work objectively, during the time defined for this purpose, in which case, as an exception, an extension of the deadline will be considered. Likewise, they must follow the indications of the Journal and complete the respective guide provided as an attachment to the manuscript.

The reviewer's criticisms must be based on scientifically supported, independent, and impartial arguments, without exception. In case of finding or suspecting fraud of any kind in the manuscript, the reviewer should inform the editor, who will take the matter to the Editorial Board, which will make the corresponding decisions.

Plagiarism detection policy

The AMC Journal uses the "Similarity Check" tool to monitor the correct use of the sources referenced and cited in the text of the manuscripts. In this way, the use of original ideas or the citation of the source when these do not belong totally or partially to the authors is guaranteed.

Likewise, any type of fraud, whether it be image modification, data fabrication, copyright infringement of other texts, or misuse of data, is monitored.

If any type of plagiarism or fraud is detected, the Editorial Board will immediately inform the author in writing, and the manuscript will be rejected.

When any type of error, fraud, or plagiarism is discovered in an article already published, it will be retracted but not removed from the Journal. For this purpose, the word "Retracted" will be incorporated as a watermark on each page of the text.

Likewise, if any error is detected, either by the authors or by the editorial team, the correction to that error will be notified in the Journal and will be incorporated in the published version. The original version will be kept separately in a file, always accessible to readers, but will not be deleted.

ON ADVERTISING

The AMC Journal may include advertising only in the printed version of the Journal, when it is news or information related to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Costa Rica, or information considered of interest to professionals, and approved by the Editorial Board.

III. DATA SHARING POLICY

Articles published in AMC whose authors wish to share their research data should include a plan that documents the following elements: 1) what data may be shared in a specific repository, 2) what related documents will accompany those data, 3) copies of informed consent from study participants for that purpose, 4) how long the data will be available, 5) where and under what criteria the data will be shared (with whom(s), licensing, whether or not they have DOIs, types of analyses or mechanisms, etc.).

Authors who make use of such data (for example, for a secondary analysis) should clarify the source of the data and give credit to those who generated it; they should also explain how their contribution differs from previous analyses.