The Korean Journal of Family Medicine (KJFM) is an open access, peer-reviewed journal committed to adhering to the following policies to enhance and maintain its high standards.

Table of Contents

• 1. Peer Review Policy
• 2. Copyright & Open Access Policy
• 3. Preprint Policy
• 4. Article Sharing Policy
• 5. Archiving Policy
• 6. Data Sharing Policy
• 7. Registration of Clinical Trial Research
• 8. Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)-assisted Technologies
• 9. Advertising Policy

1. Peer Review Policy

All papers are subject to peer review, typically involving at least two independent, expert reviewers. KJFM uses a double-blind process, where author and reviewer identities are concealed from each other but visible to the decision-making editor. Reviewers interact only with an editor, ensuring an 'independent review.' Reviewers must inform the Editor-in-Chief if they have a conflict of interest with the manuscript.

An initial decision is usually made within 3 weeks after reviewers agree to review. Reviewers must maintain confidentiality and cannot share manuscript details without prior permission from the Editor-in-Chief. Manuscripts are not returned to authors, regardless of the publication decision, and no review process details are published on the article page.

Manuscripts from editors, employees, or Editorial Board members are processed like other unsolicited manuscripts, with those authors excluded from the review and decision process. Editors do not handle their manuscripts, even if commissioned.

• Screening after submission: After submission, manuscripts undergo a screening process. If the article does not align with the journal's aims and scope, it may be editorially rejected. Additionally, if it fails to adhere to the author guidelines, it may be returned immediately without undergoing review. All submissions are checked for plagiarism using 'Similarity Check powered by iThenticate' (https://www.crossref.org/services/similarity-check/).

• Peer review process: Submitted manuscripts are reviewed by two or more field-specific reviewers who assess relevance, originality, importance, academic significance, clarity, and compliance with medical ethics. Reviewers make one of four recommendations: accept, minor revision, major revision, or reject. In cases of review discrepancies, the Editorial Board will conduct an additional review to make a final determination. Authors are expected to revise their manuscripts based on reviewer feedback and provide explanations for any feedback they choose not to implement. The Editorial Board makes the final publication decision and may request further changes. Rejected manuscripts will not be reconsidered for review.

• Appeals of decisions: Appeals against editorial decisions must be made within 2 weeks of the decision letter. Authors should contact the Editor-in-Chief with detailed reasons for the appeal. Appeals are discussed with at least one associate editor and, if needed, at a full editorial meeting. The process follows COPE guidelines (https://publicationethics.org/appeals). KJFM does not consider second appeals.

2. Copyright & Open Access Policy

• Copyright: The copyrights for all published materials are owned by The Korean Academy of Family Medicine. The corresponding author must submit a copyright transfer agreement form with signatures from all co-authors at the time of submission. The paper will not be published until the copyright transfer is complete.

• Open access license: KJFM is an open access journal distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, as long as the original work is properly cited. All contents of the journal are immediately available upon publication without an embargo period.

Authors who wish to reproduce tables or figures published in KJFM for scholarly and educational purposes do not need to obtain permission. However, proper acknowledgment must be given for the reuse of any borrowed material, by including a footnote on the reproduced table or in the figure legend (e.g., “Reprinted from Korean J Fam Med Year;Vol:Page, available under the Creative Commons License.”) and in the reference list.

Authors who wish to reproduce tables or figures published in KJFM for COMMERCIAL uses must obtain permission from KJFM (E-mail: kjfm@kafm.or.kr). Commercial use refers to ANY type of reuse for commercial benefit to the user, their place of employment, another entity. Examples of commercial use include (1) reuse by a non-authors, third parties, or other publishers of parts of or all of an article or articles in another publication (journal or book) for sale; (2) systematic distribution of multiple print or electronic copies of items taken from the journal to third parties for marketing purposes; and (3) reuse by an author of portions or all of an article in other publications from commercial organizations.

3. Preprint Policy

KJFM allows authors to submit preprints to the journal. A preprint refers to a version of a scholarly paper that precedes formal peer review and publication in a peer-reviewed scholarly journal. Submitting a preprint to KJFM will not be considered as duplicate submission or publication. KJFM advises authors to mention the existence of the preprint, along with its DOI, in the cover letter during the submission process. The preprint will go through the same peer review process as any other submission. If accepted for publication, the authors are encouraged to update the preprint with a link to the published article in KJFM, including the DOI. It is highly recommended that authors cite the published article in KJFM instead of the preprint in their future submissions to other journals.

4. Article Sharing Policy

KJFM is an open access journal, which means that authors who publish with us are able to freely share their research in various ways, including preprint servers, social media platforms, conferences, and educational materials, in accordance with our open access policy.

• Accepted version
The accepted version, which incorporates all peer review amendments prior to final publication, may be shared on non-commercial websites and repositories. Authors who previously uploaded their article to a preprint server should update the preprint with the accepted manuscript following peer review.

• Published version
The final, published version can be shared immediately upon publication. Under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license, this version permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

5. Archiving Policy

KJFM ensures electronic backup and preservation of journal content through archiving in PubMed Central from the 32nd volume, 2011 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/journals/1785/). This allows for permanent preservation of KJFM papers and ensures access in the event the journal ceases publication.

6. Data Sharing Policy

KJFM encourages data sharing wherever possible to promote openness, transparency, and reproducibility of research. Subject to ethical and legal considerations, authors are encouraged to:

• • Upload research data during the submission process; otherwise, share research data in a relevant public data repository with DOI for the data location.
• • Include a data availability statement linking to the data. If it is not possible to share the data, use the statement to confirm why it cannot be shared.

When submitting a manuscript, authors should include data availability statements. Below are examples of the types of statements that can be provided:

7. Registration of Clinical Trial Research

All research involving clinical trials must be registered with a primary national clinical trial registry, such as the Korea Clinical Research Information Service (CRiS, http://cris.nih.go.kr), another primary national registry accredited by the World Health Organization (https://www.who.int/clinical-trials-registry-platform/network), or ClinicalTrials.gov (http://clinicaltrials.gov), a service of the United States National Institutes of Health.

8. Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)-assisted Technologies

KJFM adheres to ICMJE guidelines regarding the use of AI in manuscript preparation. AI-assisted technologies, including chatbots, cannot be listed as authors. However, generative AI tools may be used to improve readability and language accuracy but not for creating or altering images in submitted manuscripts, except for adjustments like brightness, contrast, or color balance, which must not obscure original information. If AI is integral to the research, details should be included in the Methods section. Authors must disclose any use of AI tools in manuscript preparation, specifying the tools used, their versions, and their role. It must be clearly reported in a dedicated section of the Methods, or in the Acknowledgements section for article types lacking a Methods section. Plagiarism of text or images by AI is strictly prohibited, and AI-generated material cannot be cited as a primary source.

9. Advertising Policy

KJFM does not accept any commercial product advertisements until policy changes otherwise.