Instructions for authors

Critical Care is a peer-reviewed, clinical medical journal that aims to improve the care of critically ill patients by acquiring, discussing, distributing, and promoting evidence-based information relevant to intensivists. The journal publishes commentaries, reviews, and open access research in all areas of intensive care and emergency medicine. It also aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the field by reporting on recently published papers, international scientific meetings, books, and websites.


Critical Care publishes:

Editorials
The voice of Critical Care, these usually describe policy issues directly relevant to the journal and are written by select members of the Editorial Board.

Commentaries
Including

• Research-related commentaries
• Medical ethics commentaries
• Recently published papers commentaries

Reviews
Including

• Bench-to-bedside reviews
• Clinical reviews
• Statistics reviews
• Pro/con clinical debates
• Ethics roundtable debates

Research

Reports
Including

• Book reports
• Web reports
• Meeting reports
  These are 1000-word summaries of meetings with an emphasis on new data from clinical research. Most reports are commissioned and most authors are practicing intensivists. If you would like to report on a meeting please contact the editorial office beforehand.

Letters
We welcome letters on any article published in the journal. Letters are not usually sent out to peer-review but are reviewed by the Editorial Board. On occasion we may invite replies for publication in the same issue. Letters of topical interest are also considered, however we rarely publish original research or case reports in this section of the journal.
Letters commenting on articles in the journal should be a maximum of 250 words, and topical letters a maximum of 400 words, with 5 or fewer references. All letters are edited; authors are sent the edited version to approve before publication.

Errata
Authors, editors, and printers do their best but mistakes do happen. If you spot an error in the journal inform the editorial office and we shall ensure it is corrected.

Authors and referees are asked to declare any competing interests. Copyright of all material except research articles rests with the publisher, BioMed Central. Copyright for research articles rests with the authors. For more information on copyright of research articles, see our publisher's copyright and license policy.