ediatric Critical Care Medicine (PCCM) is one of three journals in the Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM) stable of journals that also includes Critical Care Medicine and Critical Care Explorations. Along with the other journals in this group, we have updated the Instructions for Authors on the journal's website (see https://journals.lww.com/pccmjournal/ pages/default.aspx). In this PCCM Notes, Methods, and Statistics article, I provide some further clarifying points for authors submitting to PCCM.
WHO IS AN AUTHOR AND WHAT ARE THEIR RESPONSIBILITIES?PCCM welcomes submissions from all over the world and all pediatric intensive care professionals. Our journal is unique in that both SCCM and the World Federation of Pediatric Intensive and Critical Care Societies (WFPICCS) acknowledge that its main purpose is to publish new information that will benefit patients. This mission is hugely important, and readers as well as authors, should be aware of the responsibilities that come with authorship.According to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE, see https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-andresponsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html), authorship is based on meeting the requirements of all four of the following criteria: 1) providing "substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work, or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work"; 2) "drafting" or critically "revising" the work for "important intellectual content"; 3) giving approval of the version of the work to be submitted to PCCM; and 4) agreeing to be "accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. " At PCCM, the corresponding author is also responsible for determining the selection and order of authors, and is accountable to their sponsoring organization, university, or department in the event of disputes about authorship. PCCM takes no position on these choices.Like other journals, we acknowledge that contemporary science often involves extended collaborations and not all contributors meet the ICMJE standard for authorship. Some manuscripts may be a collective work product, involving several contributors. Hence, large research enterprises have the option of deciding to make the distinction between authors and collaborators. In this circumstance, PCCM recommends that the corresponding author assess each contributor's role and determine which contributors are also authors and which are collaborators. At the time of submission each contributor's role can be described using the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT, see https:// credit.niso.org/). The journal places no limit on the number of individuals who are listed as contributors, and they will be identified in the United States (US) National Institutes of Health National Library of Medicine (NLM) database curated at PubMed.gov (see https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov).