Established on 2017.8.31.

6th Revised on 2026.5.21.

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. Editorial Committee

1) An Editorial Committee shall be established to deliberate on matters concerning the editing and management of the journal.

2) The Editorial Committee shall consist of up to 20 members, including the Editor-in-Chief and the Secretary. The term of office for committee members shall be two years and is renewable.

3) The Editorial Committee shall consist of members from diverse disciplines related to functional medicine and journal publication, including medical doctors, nurses, statistical experts, ethics specialists, translation experts, publishing professionals, and clinical research specialists.

4) The Editorial Committee shall convene a regular editorial meeting once a year to discuss and determine submission guidelines and overall journal operations. Additional meetings may be convened at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief when deemed necessary.

4. Ethical regulations

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.

5. 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/

6. Editorial and peer review process

JKIFM reviews all manuscripts received. A manuscript is previewed for its format and academic relevancy, and then rejected or sent to the 3 (or 1 in editorial) most relevant investigators available for review of the contents. The editor selects peer referees by recommendation of the Editorial Board members or from the Board's specialist database. In addition, if deemed necessary, a review of statistics may be requested.

Acceptance of the manuscript is decided based on the critiques and recommended decision of the referees. A referee may recommend "accept", " minor revision", "major revision," or "reject". If there is a marked discrepancy in the decisions between two referees or between the opinions of the author and referee(s), the Editor may send the manuscript to another referee for additional comments and a recommended decision. Three repeated decisions of "major revision" are regarded as a “rejection.” The reviewed manuscripts are returned back to the corresponding author with comments and recommended revisions. Names and decisions of the referees are masked. A final editor's decision on acceptance or rejection for publication is forwarded to the corresponding author from the Editorial Office.

The usual reasons for rejection are topics that are too specific and target audience that is too limited, insufficient originality, serious scientific flaws, poor quality of illustrations, or absence of a message that might be important to readers. Rarity of a disease condition is itself not an acceptable justification for a case report. The peer review process takes usually six to eight weeks after the manuscript submission.

Revisions are usually requested to take account of criticisms and comments made by referees. The revised manuscript should be resubmitted via the web system. Failure to resubmit the revised manuscript within 3 months without any notice from the corresponding author is regarded as a withdrawal. The corresponding author must indicate clearly what alterations have been made in response to the referee's comments point-by-point. Acceptable reasons should be given for noncompliance with any recommendation of the referees.

7. Publication date of the journal

In principle, the journal shall be published semi-annually, with regular publication dates on May 31 and November 30 of each year.

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. Disclosure of Artificial Intelligence(AI)-assisted Technology

 If artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted technologies (such as large language models, chatbots, or image creators) were used during preparation of the manuscript, authors should disclose how they used AI in both the cover letter and the submitted work. Authors are responsible for scientific integrity of all contents that AI generated. Authors should not list AI-assisted technologies as an author or co-author, nor cite AI as an author. All submissions or publications that do not adequately disclose AI assistance will be rejected from review or retracted.

11. Cost

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

12. 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.

13. Delegation of rights

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