Guidance for patient authors

At Taylor & Francis, we are committed to supporting the development of life-changing medical research and health care. We believe that including patients in research and publications can help to achieve this and one of the ways in which we support this is by welcoming submissions that include patients as authors.

Through the launch of plain language summaries (short, jargon-free summary within an article after its abstract) and plain language summary of publications (a standalone, jargon-free and visual summary of an article) across our journals, we have been able to connect with patient reviewers and patient organizations to ensure that the research we publish strengthens clinical care for those who need it the most.

Which journals and types of articles can include patient authors?

We welcome patient authors across selected Medicine, Dentistry, Nursing & Allied Health journals on the following article types:

You can find out whether the journal you wish to publish in welcomes patient authors on their Instructions for Authors page or by reaching out to the journal editor.

Who can be a patient author?

A patient author should fulfil the following criteria:

  • A person who lives with or is affected by a disease or condition (i.e., a broad definition of patient that includes those with lived conditions or receiving health or social care, caregivers, family members and members of patient advocacy groups who represent them)

  • A person who provides unique and valuable input from their personal patient perspective to the publication

  • Patients must meet the same ICMJE criteria as a standard author. You can find the criteria for this on our defining authorship page, which is also the Taylor and Francis authorship policies page

How can patient authors contribute to a publication?

A patient author should fulfil the following criteria:

  • Help design a study or provide feedback on the study design. This can be by being involved in creating research questions or providing feedback on outcomes that are important for patients

  • Help collect or describe results that are important to patients

  • Analyze results that may include patient perspectives

  • Share insights and feedback on the patient perspective before, during, and after the writing process

  • Review the drafts and ensure patient feedback has been included

  • Make sure the journal can contact you following publication, should readers or reviewers have any questions

What information will a patient author be required to provide when submitting an article?

Whether you are the corresponding author or a co-author, you will need to provide your full name, the city and country where you are based and the email address you use. Your email address can be from any domain and does not need to be from an institution or company domain.

Typically, only corresponding authors have their email addresses included on publications. Where you are the corresponding author, you will be asked to include your email address for correspondence in the publication. Please note that the final publication will be publicly accessible, meaning your email address will be discoverable through the publication.

If you do not wish to include your email in the final publication, please reach out to the editor of the journal and notify them as soon as possible after submission. A footnote can be included to explain to readers that they should contact the journal directly if they have any queries about the publication.

All authors will also be required to declare any competing interests relevant to your article. You can find out more about what constitutes as competing interests here. For patient authors, conflicts might include any companies or organizations that reward you financially, or non-financially, to be involved in their research or patient engagement activities.

Taylor & Francis follows strict confidentiality guidelines, and your information is used strictly for the purposes of publishing the article that you have authored. You should check the terms and conditions of submission carefully to ensure you are fully aware of how the information associated with your submission will be used.

What should I expect after submitting?

Before submitting, make sure the journal you wish to publish in welcomes patient authors by checking the journal’s instructions for authors. This can be found on the journal’s homepage or by reaching out to the journal’s editor, whose details can also be found on the journal’s homepage.

Articles that include patient authors are assessed as rigorously and ethically as all other articles. As a result, submission does not guarantee publication. After submission, the editor of the journal will check the article for its suitability as per the journal’s individual aims & scope and quality checks.

Additionally, editors will also check that patient confidentiality requirements have been met. Such as authors not identifying patients with personal details and that permission to reuse third-party content has been obtained according to our editorial policies.

All submissions are considered at the editor’s discretion. You may also be contacted by the editorial team to provide further information at any time during the submission and publication process. If your paper is considered for peer review, it will then be sent to two or more peer reviewers. These reviewers will be experts in that specific field/therapy area and will offer their feedback. Based on peer reviewer comments, the editor may ask for revisions, reject, or accept your article.

What if I am writing about other patients?

If you are writing on behalf of a patient or about a patient, you must obtain written informed consent to publish from the patient. Additionally, a declaration statement must be included in the manuscript to confirm that the patient has seen the paper and agrees to the publication.

If the patient is not an adult or lacks capacity to provide informed consent, or is deceased, written informed consent must be obtained from the patient’s legal guardian or next of kin/executor of their estate. Further information on informed consent to publish can be located here, under the consent to publish identifiable information section.

Taylor & Francis require that in addition to the above statements, authors request patients to complete the Consent to Publish form before submission of an article and that authors keep a copy of these forms on record.

What should patients be aware of when publishing an academic article?

Patient authors should be informed of the following aspects of publishing which they would need to accept to ethically feature as a patient author:

  • Publishing is a public-facing activity. Therefore, authors may be identified from the publication of their work. Patient authors would need to accept that they could be identifiable as having a specific condition due to their participation as an author. This is information which they might consider personal and may not be comfortable sharing.

  • Prior to publication, all authors of publications must sign an Author Publishing Agreement (APA) through which we (the Publisher) obtain the rights needed to publish and disseminate the article based on the publication model chosen.

    Copyright impacts how the published work can be distributed and used after publication. Our ‘understanding copyright’ page describes in detail how copyright licensing or transfer applies for Taylor & Francis Open Access and subscription (non-open access) publications.

    Briefly, open access means that anyone can read and use the articles for free online. Unlike subscription publishing, where content is accessible only to subscribers, open access removes barriers to access, so you can share and build upon the work legally without paying or asking for permission.

    However, there are some restrictions to re-use depending on licensing (e.g. you cannot use it commercially if it is published under a CC-BY-NC or CC-BY-NC-ND open access licence). You can find out which journals offer which open access licenses using our Open Access Cost Finder.

  • When Taylor & Francis publishes any article, it constitutes the Version of Record (VoR): the final, definitive, and citable version in the scholarly record. The VoR includes:

    1. The article revised and accepted following peer review, in its final form, including the abstract, text, references, bibliography, and all accompanying tables, illustrations, data

    2. Any supplemental material

    Wherever possible it is our policy to maintain the integrity of the VoR in accordance with STM Association guidelines: “Articles that have been published as the version-of-record should remain extant, exact, and unaltered to the maximum extent possible”. Therefore, there are strict circumstances under which changes can be made post-publication.

    It is important to read Taylor & Francis’ article correction and retraction policy.

How will readers know that a patient is an author on an article?

Authors are asked to provide details of the company or organization with which they are affiliated. To increase visibility of patient authors, we encourage patients to include “Patient Author” as the title of their affiliation, followed by the name of any organizations they are connected to. Make sure this is included both in the manuscript and in the submission system.

Where there is more than one author on a submission, an Author Contributions section may also be included to state the role and specific contribution of each author.