1. Contribution qualifications

Contribution to the journal is open to those who are interested in the functional medicine approach in treatment, research and education. There is no limitation to contribution.

2. Categories of articles

Manuscripts must have originality and contribute to the theory, clinical practice, education and research of functional medicine. The Journal publishes original articles, review articles, case reports, special articles, editorials, brief communications and letters to the editor.

3. Ethics

1) Ethical reviews

When the research involves human subjects, it must comply with the ethical standards of the Helsinki Declaration (revised in 2013; http://www.wma.net/policy); and, in principle, undergo scrutiny of an independent Institutional Review Board (IRB), which reviews ethical issues of human subject studies. In clinical studies, IRB’s approval must be received and patient’s consent paper must be attained, and this should be stated on the manuscript. Description materials including photographs should not disclose the patient’s name, initials, and hospital identification number. If animals were used in a study, the approval by the appropriate Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee is recommended.

2) Approval of the Institutional Review Board

When the research involves human or animal subjects, copies of written informed consent and Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval for clinical research should be kept. The IRB approval number should be listed. When necessary, the editor or reviewer may request copies of these documents to resolve questions about IRB approval and study conduct.

3) Duplicate publication or submission

A paper that has been published in another journal or is under consideration for publication elsewhere will be rejected. In instances where the paper contains similar work that has been reported in another publication, or has been published in the journal, the author should include copies of such material along with the submitted paper. The Editorial Committee of the Journal of Functional Medicine will decide whether to republish the submitted paper, and then consider its acceptance. Also, the author cannot submit a published paper to another journal without authorization. Only under the conditions of the "Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals", this may be allowed.

4) Conflict of Interest Statement and Financial (Funding) Disclosures

A financial grant or support received for research purposes should be disclosed at the bottom of the title page. All authors must disclose all interests related to research such as consultation fees and stocks when submitting the paper and affirm the disclosure, by providing personal signatures.

5) Regarding policies on research and publication ethics that are not stated in these instructions, the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) available from 'https://www.publicationethics.org/' can be applied.

4. Reporting guidelines for specific study designs

Authors should be aware of the information that must be included in the content of the research and must reflect these in the article. Authors should refer to CONSORT for randomized controlled trials, STARD for studies of diagnostic accuracy, STROBE for observational studies, and MOOSE and PRISMA for systemic investigations.

 CONSORT (Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials): http://www.consort-statement.org/

 STARD (Standards for Reporting of Diagnostic Accuracy): http://www.stard-statement.org/

 STOBE (Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology): http://www.strobe-statement.org/

 PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items of Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses): http://www.prisma-statement.org/

5. Review and selection of manuscript

All submitted manuscripts, except Editorials, will be reviewed by more than three members of the Editorial Committee or other professional peer-reviewers and then be decided for publication. If there is a discrepancy concerning the review, the final decision for publication will be made after the review of the Editorial Committee.

6. Copyright

 Once the publication of the manuscript has been decided, the copyrights will be transferred the Korean Institute for Functional Medicine and the author should sign the required document. The Korean Institute for Functional Medicine has the right to publish, distribute, and print the work in the journal or other media.

7. Author checklist

 Authors should check and submit the “Author checklist” after confirmation that all categories have been met along with the manuscript. The “Author checklist” form can be downloaded from the internet homepage or checked in e-submission system. It should be submitted by e-submission system or by e-mail with the author’s signature.

8. Cost

 No page charge or article processing charge applies. There is also no submission fee.

9. Correction of errors

 If corrections are needed after publication of papers, the author should send a list of matters to be corrected to the editorial committee. After review, corrections will be published in the next issue.

10. Delegation of rights

 Other matters not specified in regulations shall comply with the decision of the editorial committee.