About the Journal

Focus and Scope

Salud Mental (SM) (ISSN: 0185-3325 and e-ISSN:0186-761X) is a scientific journal that publishes research by academics and professionals interested in mental health care and topics related to the areas of psychiatry, psychology, neurosciences, and associated disciplines, in the format of editorial articles, original articles, review articles and clinical cases. It is a bimonthly journal, which, due to its international scope, publishes works in English, evaluated by peers under the double-blind procedure.

Peer Review Process

Editorial Review

Authors submitting a contribution for publication in Mental Health (SM) must submit a complete and final version of the documentation indicated in section Application Requirements. Once the editorial team confirms that the submission meets all the application requirements, the text will be submitted for an editorial review as follows:

• Reviewers will ensure that the text submitted is related to the focus and scope of the journal.
• Only texts that adequately refer to the bibliography and are free of plagiarism will undergo the following stages.
• Reviewers will ensure that the text complies with each of the formal requirements indicated in section Application Requirements as well as in Guidelines for the Authors.
• Once the contribution submitted passes the editorial review, the corresponding author will be formally notified of the registration and start of the academic review process.
• When a manuscript fails to comply with rigorous ethical or methodological standards or when the writing fails to adequately convey the contents or contains errors or omissions on the topic, the editorial team reserves the right to reject the manuscript, prior to peer review.

Academic Peer Review

Contributions must pass the academic peer review process involving a double-blind peer review, in which the identity of both the authors and the reviewers will remain anonymous:

• Articles that pass the editorial review will be submitted for evaluation by academic experts in the same disciplinary and thematic area as that of the text submitted.
• Reviewers will be selected from the pool of reviewers comprising specialists from national and international institutions, who will comment on the importance and quality of the proposed text and determine the feasibility of its publication.
• Reviewers will be responsible for examining and analyzing the medical, clinical, theoretical, and methodological relevance of every text assigned to them. They will be responsible for reviewing the explicit presence of the theoretical-methodological section, as well as its congruence with the field of studies, the coherence between the academic contribution and the relevance of the findings described, and the timeliness and relevance of the bibliography used.
• All texts will be sent to two experts–affiliated to a different institution from that of the authors-who will make their comments. Finally, based on the reviewers’ recommendations, the managing editor will choose one of the following options:
• Recommend publication without modifications
• Recommend publication of the text with minor changes, which do not require a second review by reviewers
• Make publication of the text contingent on making important changes, which will require a second review. This process can be repeated up to a maximum of three rounds. If at this point the document is still not recommended for publication, the article will be rejected without the possibility of a resubmission.
• Not recommend its publication
• In case of controversy in the opinions, the intervention of a third reviewer will be requested.
• For a text to be approved for publication, at least two of the three opinions must be positive.
• The editorial team will guarantee, in all cases, that the opinions delivered to authors contain solid arguments supporting the editorial decision.
• The results of the academic review process will be final in all cases.
• If observations are received, the author will have a period of four weeks to submit a new version of the article to the editor.
• The time before the document is resubmitted for review will depend on the number of articles on the waiting list.
• Once reviewers receive an article, they will have six weeks to review it and issue their recommendations.
• Once the documents accredit the academic opinion, the editing process will begin (copyediting, metadata marking, typesetting, and layout), for subsequent inclusion in the corresponding fascicle, in keeping with the decision of the editorial team.
• Once the editorial process has been completed, a preliminary version of the text will be submitted for final review and approval to the authors, who will have three calendar days to express their approval. If comments are not delivered within this period, the editorial team will assume that the authors have given their tacit approval.

Publication Frequency

Salud Mental is a bimonthly publication. Issues comprise manuscripts approved for publication.

Monothematic issues are also published, which can be ordinary or supplements on key topics in the field of mental health.

Open Access Policy

Authors publishing in Salud Mental (SM) will accept the following conditions: all articles published in SM are disseminated in Open Access and available online for free, immediately after publication.

Salud Mental does not charge any cost to the authors for submitting or processing articles for publication.