Journal of Depression And Therapy
Editors Guidelines
What a handling editor does with a manuscript, in the order the decisions arise. The rules themselves are in the editorial policies; this page is how they are applied.
- Review Model
- Single-blind by default; double-blind on request
- Reviewers
- Normally at least two independent experts
- Decision Authority
- The handling editor
1. Assess Scope, and Only Scope
The first question is whether the manuscript's subject is within the remit. It is not whether the study is good.
Depression alongside What the Manuscript Examines
A manuscript is in scope when it carries a developed connection to depression, depressive symptoms or their treatment. Judge that connection substantively rather than by vocabulary: work on a related condition, a shared mechanism or a therapy developed elsewhere is in scope when its bearing on depression is clear and worked out, and the word need not appear in the title.
Fit is decided by subject, not by design. Laboratory studies, clinical trials, observational studies, single cases, qualitative studies, measurement work, replications, evidence syntheses and conceptual papers are all eligible. Do not apply a universal requirement for novelty, a demonstrated mechanism, a clinical benefit, a particular population or a particular setting; none is part of the approved remit. The boundary is on the aims and scope page.
Keep the two judgments apart. Subject eligibility and evidence quality are assessed separately. A well-conducted study on an off-scope subject is declined on scope; a weak study on an in-scope subject is assessed on its evidence, not redefined as off scope. Recording which of the two decided a desk rejection makes the decision explicable to the author.
2. Confirm You Can Handle It
Before doing anything else with a manuscript, check that you are the right person to hold it.
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Competence
Handle manuscripts whose subject and method fall within your own field. Where a manuscript sits partly outside it — a trial with an unfamiliar analysis, a qualitative study, a preclinical model — ask the editorial office to reassign it or to add an editor who covers the missing part.
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Competing Interests and Recusal
Declare competing interests and recuse yourself from manuscripts you have authored, co-authored, or have a personal or financial interest in. Those manuscripts are assigned to another editor and handled independently. Holding an editorial role confers no advantage in the review of your own work.
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Confidentiality
A submitted manuscript is confidential. Do not disclose its existence or content, do not use unpublished material for your own purposes, and do not share files outside the review process.
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Files and AI Tools
Confidential manuscript content must not be uploaded where confidentiality cannot be assured. Where an AI tool is used in handling a manuscript, its use is disclosed on the same terms that apply to reviewers.
3. Choose Reviewers and Read Their Reports
All submissions undergo initial editorial screening. Manuscripts that meet the journal's scope and minimum requirements proceed to independent peer review.
Selecting Reviewers
Single-blind by default; double-blind review is available on request.
- Manuscripts that proceed to external peer review are normally evaluated by at least two independent subject-matter experts
- Match the reviewers to the manuscript's method as well as its topic: a trial needs someone who can read the analysis, a qualitative study someone who works in that tradition
- Avoid reviewers at the authors' institution, recent collaborators, and anyone with a declared interest in the outcome
- When double-blind review is requested, editors must ensure that author-identifying information is not shared with reviewers
Reading the Reports
- Weigh the reasoning in a report, not its tone or its length. A short report giving a specific, checkable objection carries more than a long one that does not
- Where two reports disagree, resolve the disagreement on the evidence rather than by counting recommendations, and seek a further opinion where the point is decisive
- Set aside requests for citations that do not bear on the manuscript's argument
- Set aside objections that amount to a preference for a different study, and separate them from objections to how this study was done
- Return a report that breaches confidentiality or civility to the editorial office rather than to the authors
4. Decide
The decision is yours, and it is made on the manuscript.
Editorial decisions are based on scope, scientific quality, methodological rigor, ethical compliance, reporting quality, and relevance to the journal.
Assess the evidence against the claim the manuscript makes. A study reporting an association is judged as an association study; a manuscript claiming a causal effect, a predictive relationship, efficacy, or a use in clinical care is judged against the design, sample and analysis such a claim needs. Where the evidence does not reach the claim, the proportionate response is usually to ask the authors to bring the claim back to what the data support, not to decline the subject.
Payment never enters a decision. An article processing charge is raised only after acceptance, and no fee, membership, editorial role or optional service is visible to, or relevant in, the assessment of a manuscript. An author's ability to pay is handled by the editorial office, separately from the manuscript and separately from you.
Write the decision so the author can act on it: say which points are decisive, distinguish them from the optional ones, and make clear what a revision would have to establish.
5. When Something Is Wrong
Integrity concerns are escalated to the editorial office, not resolved privately between an editor and an author.
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Ethics and Integrity Concerns
Where ethics approval, consent, trial registration, authorship, data or image integrity is in doubt, pause the manuscript and refer it to the editorial office. The office takes it up with the authors and, where appropriate, their institution, following COPE-aligned practice.
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Plagiarism and Duplicate Publication
A similarity report is read in context: overlap in a methods section is not the same finding as overlap in results or discussion. There is no automatic threshold, and the assessment is editorial.
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Appeals
An author may appeal a decision in writing. An appeal is considered by an editor not involved in the original decision, so do not handle an appeal against your own decision.
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Corrections and Retractions
Where an error is found after publication, the journal issues a correction or, where findings are no longer reliable, a retraction. Notices are published and linked to the original article, which is never silently changed.
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Guest-Edited Collections
Guest editors work under the same rules, including recusal from their own submissions, which are handled independently by a journal editor.
The complete rules are in the editorial policies, and the reviewers' side of the process is in the reviewer guidelines.
Support
Reassignment, reviewer suggestions, integrity referrals and questions about how a policy applies go to the editorial office at [email protected].
The current board and each member's field are on the editorial board page.