Editorial Policy

Editorial Policy

Headache Medicine has a clear editorial policy describing the responsibilities due to editors, reviewers, and authors. We have also gathered information on the manuscript review process, ethics, plagiarism, and misconduct, as well as guidelines and recommendations to ensure publication quality.

Editorial responsibilities

Editors are responsible for:

  • Ensuring transparency and integrity throughout the entire editorial process.
  • Adopting clear procedures regarding ethical issues, conflicts of interest, and compliance with institutional policies.
  • Investigating complaints related to submissions, providing authors with the opportunity to respond when necessary.
  • Acting impartially, without discrimination based on gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, political position, ethnic origin, or geographical location of the authors.
  • Ensuring that sponsored supplements or any form of external funding do not influence editorial decisions.
  • Guaranteeing open access to articles and clearly informing readers of the adopted Creative Commons license type (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International – CC BY 4.0).
  • Maintaining documented records of all submissions and editorial processes

Reviewers’ responsibilities

Reviewers must:

  • Assist in editorial decision-making and contribute to improving the quality of articles by providing critical analyses and objective suggestions within the established deadline.
  • Maintain the confidentiality of information and data provided during the review process.
  • Alert the editor if similarities with published or ongoing works are identified, indicating possible cases of plagiarism.
  • Declare any potential conflict of interest (financial, institutional, or collaborative) before accepting the review of a manuscript.

Our peer review process follows the single-blind model, in which authors do not know the identity of reviewers, while reviewers have access to authors’ information.

Authors’ responsibilities

Authors must:

  • Ensure that the submitted manuscript is original and has not been formally published or accepted for publication in another journal.
  • Comply with national and international regulations for studies involving human beings or animals, including:
  • Declare conflicts of interest through a document signed by all co-authors.
  • Notify the editor of any significant error identified after publication and provide the necessary information for issuing corrections, retractions, or errata when required.
  • Make raw data and experimental records related to the manuscript available when requested by the editor.
  • Retain copyright while granting publication under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
  • Provide the ORCID of all authors at the time of submission.
  • Follow the CRediT taxonomy to describe each author's individual contribution to the manuscript.
  • Comply with the deadlines established by the journal for submission, review, and submission of requested corrections.
  • After manuscript acceptance, the inclusion of new authors will not be permitted.

Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and AI-assisted technologies in scientific writing and peer review

The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in manuscript development must follow principles of scientific ethics, ensuring transparency, responsibility, and compliance with academic community guidelines. The use of generative AI in writing or data analysis must be explicitly mentioned in the methodology section or acknowledgments, as appropriate. Improper use or the generation of content without scientific validation may result in manuscript rejection.

We recognize that advances in AI tools have created new possibilities for supporting writing, editing, translation, data visualization, and image generation, while also requiring greater transparency to preserve the integrity and reliability of scientific literature.

Following these recommendations, our editorial policy is aligned with the guidance provided in the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers (STM) guidance document, informing authors, reviewers, and readers that the use of AI is permitted for language correction, translation, data formatting, visualization, and reference searching, provided that the authors clearly declare these applications.

We emphasize that presenting results, data, or images generated by AI as if they were original is unacceptable and contrary to international scientific integrity guidelines.

AI tools cannot be credited as authors, since authorship implies responsibility and accountability for the scientific content.

Recommended reading:

Ethics, Plagiarism, and Scientific Misconduct

Headache Medicine respects Ethical Conduct and Good Publication Practices (Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing) published by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA), and the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), as well as the Singapore Statement and the Hong Kong Principles on Research Integrity.

Headache Medicine adopts rigorous measures to ensure research integrity and prevent plagiarism:

  • All accepted manuscripts undergo similarity screening through Similarity Check.
  • The maximum accepted similarity percentage is 25%. It is assessed on a case-by-case basis, based on the detailed plagiarism detection report and the nature of the identified overlaps.
  • Manuscripts with more than 25% plagiarism may be rejected. When necessary, the authors and their institutions will be notified.

Responsibility for the content of published manuscripts lies exclusively with the authors and does not reflect the opinion of the editors.

Allegations of misconduct

Headache Medicine considers the following practices to constitute misconduct: plagiarism, self-plagiarism, duplicate submission, undeclared conflicts of interest, data manipulation or fabrication, authorship issues, and any other practice that compromises the integrity of the scholarly record.

To prevent misconduct, all submitted manuscripts undergo originality screening (for plagiarism and self-plagiarism) and ethical and methodological evaluation during peer review. Authors must declare potential conflicts of interest and provide approval from Ethics Committees when applicable.

In cases of suspected ethical violations, any member of the academic community (authors, readers, reviewers, Editorial Board members) or the general public may submit a complaint via email at: support@headachemedicine.com.br

The Editorial Board evaluates complaints in accordance with international guidelines established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), as well as other editorial best practices such as ICMJE and WAME. Depending on the case, measures may include the issuance of a correction, retraction, or other appropriate actions to preserve the integrity of the scientific literature.

Errata and Retraction

Changes to articles already published will only be made upon formal request by the authors, submitted in a signed letter and accompanied by a plausible justification. If the request is reviewed and approved by the editors, the correction will be recorded transparently through Crossmark, ensuring traceability and publication integrity.

Crossmark is an initiative developed by multiple publishers through Crossref to standardize how readers identify the current version of a publication. By applying the Crossmark logo, Headache Medicine commits to maintaining the content of its publications and alerting readers to any changes whenever they occur. Published content in Headache Medicine will display the Crossmark icon, limited to the journal’s official content. By clicking the Crossmark logo, readers will be able to verify the current status of the manuscript and access any additional information available for that document.

Human and animal research ethical principles

Headache Medicine requires strict adherence to the ethical principles applicable to scientific research. Accordingly, all manuscripts derived from studies involving humans or animals must comply with the following guidelines:

Authors must ensure that all scientific best practices were strictly observed in the conduct of the studies. Therefore, where applicable, it is mandatory to:

  • State in the manuscript's methods or methodology section the prior approval of an institutionally recognized Research Ethics Committee, including the approval protocol number or the declaration followed.
  • Explicitly state that all participants signed the Informed Consent Form, ensuring their autonomy, confidentiality, and well-being.

Gender and sex aspects

The editorial team of Headache Medicine and the authors who publish in the journal must adhere to the Sex and Gender Equity in Research (SAGER) guidelines to ensure appropriate consideration of sex or gender in scientific research. The SAGER guidelines consist of a set of recommendations designed to guide the inclusion and reporting of information related to sex or gender during:

  • Study planning
  • Data analysis
  • Presentation and interpretation of results

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA)

Headache Medicine, following best-practice principles and transparency in scientific publishing, as well as the recommendations of COPE and the guidelines of the Coalition for Diversity and Inclusion in Scholarly Communications (C4DISC), is committed to promoting and encouraging diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA).

Policy on authorship changes or article withdrawal

Changes to authorship or the withdrawal of published articles will only be implemented in justified cases, in compliance with editorial best practices. Requests must be formalized through a letter sent to the journal, containing:

  • Contact information for all authors;
  • A detailed justification for the request;
  • Electronic signatures of all involved authors, provided via official digital certification platforms.

The request will be evaluated by an editorial committee, which will deliberate on its merits within 60 days, in accordance with the ethical guidelines for scientific publishing (COPE). The final decision will be formally communicated to the authors.

Complaints and appeals

Headache Medicine has a transparent process for handling complaints and appeals. Complaints may involve delays in the editorial process, the conduct of reviewers or editors, or ethical issues related to published manuscripts. Appeals may be submitted by authors who disagree with an editorial decision, especially when they believe there has been an error, procedural failure, or bias.

The journal maintains an official communication channel via email at support@headachemedicine.com.br, through which any complaint or appeal must be sent.

Every request will be resolved through a transparent process, evaluated by the current Editor-in-Chief, who will ensure an impartial analysis. The response time is up to 15 business days.