Pick up any reputable journals at random and read their author guidelines. They will usually have one of the 3 conditions
1️⃣ Only solicited review articles are published
2️⃣ If you wish to submit a review article, please send an email to the editor first, briefly describing your article
3️⃣ You can send us unsolicited review articles, but they will be published only if they add great value to clinical practice.
The possible reason for the aversion is the sheer volume of narrative reviews that are being submitted, with no new information that benefits clinicians. Yet, most requests from marketing and medical affairs are for writing and publication of review articles. Most clients still insist we send the article to a high-impact-factor journal and wait for the response…….and we just keep waiting! There is simply no response.
So, what is the solution? It depends on your objective for the publication.
If you are only doing it as a CRM activity, in such cases, most HCPs are really not worried about the impact factor. They need to do a publication because of their institutional requirement. Choose a journal that is not picky and has a short turnaround time.
If you are doing it to propagate a new concept or a treatment (for business impact), first search and check how many recent publications are already available on the topic. If there are plenty already, be realistic, no high-ranking journal will publish yet another. The concept or treatment might still be relatively new in your country. In such a case, be practical and choose a local journal, even if the impact factor is low.
Whenever I suggest a local journal with a low impact factor, many clients are worried- how will it reach my target audience? I have a counter-question to this question. Are you sure your customers are reading all high-impact factor journals and all publications in them? It might be wiser to choose journals that are not closed to accepting review articles, and have a short turnaround time, although their impact factor is not high. Once published, you can purchase print rights for the article and distribute hard copies to your intended audience. Does it not make better business sense?
However, if you indeed intend to influence a global audience, you need a topic that can generate a discussion and have a clinical impact, e.g., comparison of 2 recently published international guidelines on a disease, differences between them, and the difficulty in choosing one over the other for a clinician. In such cases, the road to publication is long, but for a larger impact, you cannot be in a rush.
A more impactful way of KOL engagement is the publication of case reports/case series. Read more about it here https://medicomindspro.com/why-it-might-be-more-beneficial-to-collaborate-with-kols-on-publication-of-case-reports-rather-than-review-articles/
Nevertheless, if you do have a good idea and a reason for getting a narrative review published, it is good to know some do’s and don’ts and prepare accordingly. Read them here https://medicomindspro.com/writing-a-narrative-review-article/
MedicoMindsPro 