Aim & Scope

California Pharmacist features clinical and professional articles designed to inform, educate, and motivate pharmacy professionals to advance pharmacy practice and patient care. California Pharmacist publishes original research, reviews, clinical practice capsules, evidence-based reviews, commentary, patient care, case reports, law updates, and preceptor pearls.

Advertising Policy

All advertising will be subject to editorial approval. Editorial decisions will not be influenced by advertisers or other marketing decisions. Advertisers have no control over editorial content. The Publisher reserves the right to reject any advertisement that it feels is not in line with the standards or values of the Publication or CPhA.

California Pharmacist will not accept advertising for any product or that is known to be harmful to health. Advertisements that are misleading or do not clearly identify the advertiser will not be accepted. All advertisements must clearly and prominently identify the advertiser by trademark or signature. Advertisements will not be placed with editorial content related to the same product or service.
Please direct any feedback regards advertising to:
Andrea LaMattina
Managing Editor
[email protected] | (916) 779-4507

Editorial Policy

In accordance with ICMJE recommendations, the Editor-in-Chief has full authority over the editorial content of the publication. Although California Pharmacist is published and owned by the California Pharmacists Association (CPhA), the Association does not interfere in the evaluation, selection, or publication of articles either directly or indirectly.

Open Access Policy

This is an open access publication, which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with the BOAI definition of open access.

Data Sharing Policy

California Pharmacist encourages authors to share data publicly when it is ethical to do so. Authors may provide a data statement that lists where the data can be publicly accessed.

Peer Review Policy

California Pharmacist uses a double-blind peer review process.

Peer reviewers may be selected to read any article submitted to California Pharmacist. Once selected, a reviewer will receive an email confirmation at which time they may accept or decline to review the article.

• If a reviewer accepts an assignment accept, they are expected to review the article by the due date. This is critically important to allow the publication to maintain a rigorous publication timeline.
• If a reviewer cannot review the article by the due date, they should contact the Managing Editor immediately to discuss options.
• If a reviewer feels a conflict of interest exists, they should contact the Managing Editor to be removed from reviewing the manuscript.

In the review process, reviewers have the opportunity to leave confidential comments to the editor about the article. They are also able to provide specific suggestions for the author to improve the article. All feedback is filtered through the online editorial system, so reviewers do not communicate directly with authors.

Once a reviewer’s comments are recorded, they select a recommendation term: Accept, Minor Revision, Major Revision, or Reject.

• Minor Revision or Major Revision: Reviewer should provide feedback about ways the author can improve the article.
• Accept: Reviewer should provide positive feedback about the article.
• Reject: Reviewer should explain why they believe the article is unsuitable for publication in the Journal.

These comments will be provided to the editor.

Based on all peer reviews submitted for an article, the Editor-in-Chief will determine if an article needs to be revised by the author. If so, the editor will send the article back to the author for revision along with any appropriate feedback. Once the author submits a revised manuscript, the Managing Editor may call upon reviewers again to review the newly revised manuscript to determine whether the changes made are acceptable. If the changes were not made, a reviewer may elect to request further revisions. If appropriate changes were made, the reviewer should choose to Accept the submission. After all revisions are made and a final article is accepted, a decision regarding publishing is usually made within a month. On average, a feature article will be published approximately three to six months after submission.

Licensing Policy

This works in this publication are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Correction & Retraction Policy

If a correction is needed, the Journal will:

• Publish a correction notice as soon as possible detailing changes from and citing the original publication.
• Post a new article version with details of the changes from the original version and the date(s) on which the changes were made.
• Archive all prior versions of the article. This archive will be made available to readers on request.
• Previous electronic versions will prominently note that there is a more recent version of the article.
• Ensure the citation will be to the most recent version.

Errors serious enough to invalidate a paper’s results and conclusions may require retraction. Retractions will be posted on the publication website and will be noted in the next issue of the publication after the retraction is issued.

Misconduct Policy

California Pharmacist adheres to the misconduct standards and procedures set out by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Scientific misconduct in research and non-research publications includes but is not necessarily limited to data fabrication; data falsification, including deceptive manipulation of images; purposeful failure to disclose conflicts of interest; and plagiarism.

When scientific misconduct is alleged, or concerns are otherwise raised about the conduct or integrity of work described in submitted or published papers, the editor will initiate appropriate procedures detailed by the COPE, consider informing the institutions and funders, and may choose to publish an expression of concern pending the outcomes of those procedures. If the procedures involve an investigation at the authors’ institution, the editor will seek to discover the outcome of that investigation; notify readers of the outcome if appropriate; and if the investigation proves scientific misconduct, publish a retraction of the article.

Ethics and Disclosure Policy

Authors should maintain high standards with regards to ethics. Unacceptable practices include plagiarism (including self-plagiarism), falsification or fabrication of data, and misappropriation of work. Any allegation of ethical malpractice will be treated seriously and handled in accordance with the Commission on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines.

Authors should disclose any financial interests or personal connections, whether direct or indirect, that could raise concerns about bias in the conclusions or opinions stated in their work. This includes funding information for individual authors or their institutions, personal relationships, or direct competition. Any author who does not have a conflict of interest to disclose should include that information in their author biography.

Clinical Trials Policy

California Pharmacist follows the guidelines set out by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors regarding clinical trials. All clinical trials are required to be registered in a public trials registry at or before the time of first patient enrollment. Authors should include the trial registration number for articles which relate to clinical trials. For these purposes, a clinical trial is defined as “any research project that prospectively assigns people or a group of people to an intervention, with or without concurrent comparison or control groups, to study the relationship between a health-related intervention and a health outcome.” It the responsibility of the author, not the editor, to explain any discrepancies between results reported in registries and journal articles.

Protection of Research Participants

Informed Consent

Patient privacy is of the utmost importance. Authors should ensure that identifying information should not be included in any aspect of the paper without the informed consent of the patient or patients identified. Authors should attest to California Pharmacist that informed consent has been obtained and submit a blank copy of the form that was filled out by any identified patient. Do not submit completed consent forms to California Pharmacist. For more information about informed consent, consult the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors policies.

Human Rights

For research involving human participants, authors should attest that they have either obtained Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval, or that the study is exempt from IRB approval due to the nature of the research.

Animal Rights

For research involving non-human animal participants, authors should attest that they have followed the guidelines set forth in Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (National Research Council) or applicable laws in the region where the research took place.