[Assessing compliance of guidelines on layout in Acta Médica Portuguesa].
OBJECTIVE
To assess the compliance of Acta Medica Portuguesa of international guidelines for layout of serial publications.


METHODS
Compliance assessment of international guidelines for serial publications included in a recent review published by the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology. Only chapters regarding layout, but not those related with instructions for authors and editorial policy were assessed. Compliance of chapters of general characteristics and issue table of contents was evaluated from Acta Medica Portuguesa web page; the chapter contributions was evaluated analyzing the layout of the articles published in 2007.


RESULTS
In 2007, 70 articles were published in the 6 issues constituting the volume 20 of Acta Medica Portuguesa. Out of the 76 criteria assessed, 7 were considered as non-applicable. From the remaining 69 criteria, Acta Medica Portuguesa complies with 27 (39.1%).


CONCLUSIONS
Simple solutions are suggested to comply with 51 criteria (73.9%), being 10 criteria considered as under discussion when thinking on online journals edition. Current study has not assessed criteria of instructions for authors and editorial policy, which should soon undergo another assessment.


CONCLUSIONS
Acta Medica Portuguesa complies about 39% of criteria from the guidelines for journal layout, but with slight modifications could achieve near 75% of compliance.
Fernandez-Llimos
Fernando
F
Sub-Grupo de Socio-Farmácia, Faculdade de Farmácia, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa.
Silva
Teresa A
TA
D019983:Guideline Adherence; D010506:Periodicals as Topic / Q000592:standards*; D011174:Portugal; D011643:Publishing / Q000592:standards*