About the BJGP
The British Journal of General Practice publishes papers
on research, debate, and analysis in primary care and family
medicine. It is the world’s second most highly cited peer reviewed
primary care journal, and is sent to over 40,000 clinicians and
researchers each month. Its 2010 Impact Factor is 2.07.
The BJGP began life over 50 years ago as the College of General
Practitioners’ Research Newsletter, with the Journal
of the College of General Practitioners first appearing in
February 1960 under the editorship of Dr RMS McConaghey. With the
change in status of the College, the Journal of the Royal
College of General Practitioners was launched in 1967. Three
editors later, in 1990, the title was changed to the British
Journal of General Practice. More information about the
history of the BJGP can be found in the editorial: Fifty years of the Journal:
reflections from its editors (PDF 164KB).
Each month the BJGP publishes about 8–10 research papers in
addition to editorials, correspondence, discussion and analysis
articles, and a range of more eclectic material aimed at
entertaining and stimulating, as well as informing, the
readership.
Research papers are carefully peer reviewed, using an open peer
review system, where the identities of the authors and reviewers
are known to each other. We believe that this encourages more
respectful, constructive reviewing and very few reviewers take the
option of ‘blinding’ their reviews. We aim to have reviewers’
comments back in the BJGP Journal office within 2 weeks of
receipt of the paper, and to give authors an initial decision about
acceptance within a further 2 weeks. We are able to publish around
15% of submitted papers.
We operate a paper short/web long publication strategy: full papers
are posted on the web as fully citeable publications as soon after
acceptance as we are able, and a two-page summary of the paper,
written by the authors, is published in the print journal. The
online BJGP is visited by 150,000 unique users each month and
80,000 papers are downloaded in the same period.
The work of the journal is supported by an Editorial Board of about 15 researchers and
clinicians, and by a larger International
Advisory Board with representation from nearly 30 countries.
The BJGP is a Member of the Committee on Publication
Ethics, subscribes to the principles and guidelines of the
International Committee of Medical Journal
Editors, and participates in the HINARI programme. If you'd like
more information about the journal, please see the Information section of the site or Contact us.
ISSN 0960-1643 (Print), ISSN 1478-5242 (Online).