A Pathway to Excellence

Introduction

Clínica y Salud was first published in 1990 under the auspices of the Official Association of Psychologists of Madrid. The journal was created to be the reporting body of the Clinical Section of this association. Like all beginnings, years of strenuous work were required to position the journal as a rigorous source of consultation for professionals in the area of clinical psychology and health.

The format of the journal has gradually changed over time, especially since 2009, to adapt it to a more rigorous methodological configuration. Thus, every article includes since 2010 the Digital Object Identifier (DOI). This allows for finding articles on the Internet regardless of where they are located (International DOI Foundation, 2012). Articles in English started to be published in 2010, when the Extended Summary was also incorporated for studies written in Spanish. This work, together with improvement in other journal processes and in the quality of articles published, was recognised in 2014, when Clínica y Salud obtained its first impact factor (IF) in the Scopus literature database. Three years later, in 2017, the IF came from the Web Of Science (WOS) database, which includes references in the main scientific publications of any area of knowledge. The FI – a measure of the impact of a journal on the scientific community – is not static, but reviewed annually. This requires us to be better, to seek excellence in our articles, to publish on issues of relevance for the profession, to contribute to the spreading and dissemination of articles, etc. In short, to aspire to be, if possible, one of the references in Spanish journals in the area.

Obtaining the WOS impact index has been a major advance in journal visibility for applied researchers around the world. This database allows scientists and clinicians from different countries to be able to consult Clínica y Salud publications. This visibility deserves to be repaid by trying to open our horizons and facilitating access to the entire worldwide community of psychologists. For this reason, from now on, the journal’s Editorial Committee will consider a priority the publication of articles in English, as well as those based on good clinical practice or empirically-supported psychological treatments (Sakaluk et al., 2019), respecting at all times the code of conduct established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE, 2017).

New Challenges, New Team

Achievement of excellence requires good work teams. Since 1990, great professionals and academics have collaborated with the journal. It would be almost impossible to list them all. We would like to express our most sincere thanks to prior editors and their teams, with special mention to Juan Carlos Duro Martínez, Alejandro Ávila Espada, Lucila Andrés Díez, and Héctor González Ordi, as well as to all those who, in one way or another, cooperated with the journal and invested their time and effort, either as readers, reviewers, managers, or technical staff.

The journal now has a renewed structure, including the figures of Executive Management and Strategic Advisory, as well as new Associate Editors with a professional background and commitment that will allow for reinforcing areas as important for Clinical and Health Psychology as child and youth mental health, addictive behaviours, or serious mental disorders, not to forget aspects of vital importance such as the journal’s international outreach.

The Editorial Board has also been renewed, adding new professionals who, together with the great renowned authors it already included, will increase the quality and impact of the journal’s publications.

Horizon of the Journal

Following the wake of the journal’s trajectory, in Clínica y Salud we would like to be a reference of methodological rigour for research and clinical practice. To this end, two articles have recently been published, one on how to conduct systematic reviews (Cajal et al., 2020), and another on publication of case reports Vicente-Colomina et al., 2020). We hope they will serve as a guide for authors who wish to publish on these topics, both in our journal and in any other in the area. In the near future, we will publish more articles intended to be texts for consultation by investigators, clinicians, healthcare professionals, and students.

By issuing articles based on empirical evidence and good clinical and publishing practice, we aim to contribute to the training of professionals in the applied field of Clinical and Health Psychology. We would also like to support the Code of Ethics of the Psychologist, which, in its article 17, states that psychology professionals must make a “continued effort to update their professional competence”. Likewise, article 18 states that “without prejudice to the legitimate diversity of theories, schools, and methods, the psychologist shall not use any means or procedures that are not sufficiently proven within the limits of current scientific knowledge”. The role of the new Editorial Board is to publish and promote articles that contribute to the advance of scientific knowledge.

With this objective as a priority, we would like to incorporate the results of research conducted by academics, clinicians, and healthcare professionals inviting national and international research groups or networks to focus on the vision expressed in these lines: empirical evidence, continuity, and innovation.

Thanks again to our readers, for whom we build this project. And thanks in particular to the reviewers, whose disinterested role is indispensable to maintaining the publication circuit.

Scientific knowledge is the best we can deliver to society, and this is the spirit that guides us as we undertake this new stage.