Journal History

Brazilian Journal of Occupational Therapy is the continuation of the Cadernos de Terapia Ocupacional da UFSCar. Since the issue 2, 2017, it is called Brazilian Journal of Occupational Therapy. It follows the development of scientific journals in the fields of Physical Therapy and Occupational Therapy linked to the expansion of graduate programs in Brazil and to the need to disseminate information concerning the production of knowledge in the field. The journal was conceived in the late 1980s and its first issue was launched in May 1990. Its purpose is to give visibility to discussions proposed by Master’s theses and doctoral dissertations by researchers in the field of occupational therapy, advance a critical discussion of occupational therapy.

Because at the time there were no graduate programs in the field of Occupational Therapy apart from specialized certification courses (the first Master’s program in the field was initiated in 2010, and the PhD in 2015, at the Federal University of São Carlos), the journal met a need for initiating discussion with related fields and the need to disseminate specific knowledge acquired in the field of Occupational Therapy.

The changes experienced in the Brazilian context concerning higher education and graduate studies influenced the professional education of practitioners in the field. The number of undergraduate programs expanded in Brazil in response to growing number of policies in the field of health, education and social services, which demanded a larger number of practitioners, including occupational therapists. The Minimum Curricula required for undergraduate programs, which was approved in 1982, also strengthened the specificity of courses in the field of occupational therapy, resulting in increased demand for qualified professors. These practitioners, in addition to mastering the practice of occupational therapy, were required to do research and produce scientific knowledge, which in turn, led to the need for specific periodicals in the field to disseminate such knowledge.

The Brazilian Journal of Occupational Therapy followed this path and sought to adapt to the new requirements established for Brazilian publications while facing important challenges for more than 20 years.

In 1993, its presentation was changed and a new visual component was added in order to publish a larger number of texts, though the challenge to increase the number of published papers was based on the field as a whole from the time the journal began.

An editorial published in volume 4, from 1993 [1], addressed this intent, reflecting incipient research and its dissemination. Research has changed in recent years, as this periodical has received a growing number of submissions, allowing for a larger number of published papers. This process led, in 2010, to a change in the journal’s periodicity, from semiannual to three issues/year, reflecting the larger number of papers submitted to the journal and the editorial board’s effort to achieve current criteria established for scientific production. In 2014 four annual volumes began to be published. And in 2015 it is officially trimestral.

In order to achieve the current Brazilian criteria for scientific publications in the field, as well as to contribute to the Brazilian movement for public access to academic collections, the journal invested in making all the journal’s issues published from more than 20 years available on the World Wide Web. These papers are available free-of-cost from the journal’s electronic site within the Electronic System for Journal Publishing (SEER).

With the objective to implement changes allowing access to databases that are relevant for the field, the submission criteria and assessment of papers were reviewed, though we maintained two ad hoc referees who are involved in the review of papers together with the Editorial Board; this is the same procedure that has been in place since the beginning of the journal. The submitted papers are selected according to criteria regarding relevance of content, argumentative consistency, theoretical and methodological coherence, structural adequacy, and contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the field.

After a review in 2010, categories of texts were classified into: Original Research Paper, Literature Review and/or Literature Update, Reflective Essay Experience Report. The multiplicity of sections is intended to mirror the diversity of production in the field of Occupational Therapy, which, even though it has grown in terms of research, still presents relevant characteristics concerning reflections accruing from knowledge that has not been systematized according to the parameters of scientific research, but which still requires dissemination.

In this direction, in 2017 it is called Brazilian Journal of Occupational Therapy, with the intention to represent its national and international insertion, despite our great historical affection for Cadernos de Terapia Ocupacional da UFSCar.

This set of actions undertaken throughout the history of the journal reflects the unrelenting work involved for this periodical to comply with rigorous criteria of international database indexing as acknowledged in the scientific field.
It is worth noting that the journal’s trajectory so far has been extremely important to disseminating knowledge of Occupational Therapy in Brazil and that significant challenges are still being faced to achieve scientific standards for the disclosure and dissemination of knowledge as set out by funding and assessment agencies.

REFERENCES

[1] REBELATTO, J. R. Editorial. Cad. Ter. Ocup. UFSCar, São Carlos, v. 6, n. 1, p. i., 1997.