All manuscripts published in Child Health Nursing Research (CHNR) are indexed and tracked by Scopus, Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), Google Scholar, Crossref, Korea Citation Index (KCI), KoreaMed, and Korean Medical Citation Index (KoMCI). CHNR was accepted for inclusion in Scopus by the Scopus Content Selection and Advisory Board (CSAB) in February 2018, and it was accepted for inclusion in DOAJ in July 2019. In addition CHNR was re-evaluated by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) in 2020, and has been included in the KCI. All of the manuscripts in CHNR are freely available with open access for everyone to read and download from the CHNR website (http://www.e-chnr.org/) immediately and permanently after publication.
In 2020, a total of 46 articles were published in the four issues of volume 26 of CHNR, of which 29 were written in English and 17 in Korean (Table 1). The average number of authors was 2.8 persons (SD=1.5, range=1-6), and 83% of the authors were Korean, while 17% were North American, Asian, or European. By contrast, an analysis of the 146 articles published in CHNR during the 3-year period between 2016 and 2018 revealed that all of the authors were Korean [1]. It is our understanding that the inclusion of CHNR in international databases in turn led to an increase in international submissions. Furthermore, 45.7% of the research was funded, and approximately 50% of the funding was provided by national institutions.
The most common study subjects were school-age children (18.3%), followed by adolescents and parents (16.7% each) (Table 2). In 65% of the studies, the subjects were children ranging from newborns to adolescents. Similarly, 60.5% of the studies published in CHNR in 2014 had children as subjects [2]. Surveys were the most frequently used research method (50.0%), and survey-based research accounted for a similar proportion of articles published in 2014 (44.7%) [2] and 2016-2018 (48.8%) [1]; as such, over the last 7 years, nearly half of the articles published in CHNR have been survey-based. The proportion of literature reviews and secondary analysis studies, which comprised 13.2% of articles in 2014 [2] and 8.8% in 2016-2018 [1], increased to 23.9% in 2020 (literature reviews 13.0% and secondary analysis studies 10.9%).
CHNR has increased the number of English publications each year, publishing one issue in English in 2018, two issues in 2019, and three issues in 2020. Furthermore, starting with the third issue in 2020, all articles are now published in English. The transition to an English-only publication will both make the journal more accessible for international readers and encourage submissions from international researchers. This change is also expected to promote the achievement of the journal's aim to contribute to the development of research, theory, and practice related to child health around the world, as well as in Korea, as an international journal. Furthermore, we have made incessant efforts to uphold the principles of transparency and best practice in scholarly publishing [3]. By complying with research ethics and by editing and publishing according to global standards through these efforts, we aim to be accepted for inclusion in PubMed Central, as well as maintaining the inclusion of CHNR in Scopus.
I am deeply grateful to both the reviewers who reviewed the manuscripts submitted to CHNR and the editors who edited papers even in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. It would not have been possible to publish the journal without the dedication and effort of our reviewers and editors. Thanks to the insightful perspectives and valuable comments of the reviewers and editors, we were able to publish high-quality articles in CHNR. I express my sincere gratitude to all of you for your contributions to the publication and improvement of CHNR.