Predatory Open Access in Rehabilitation

Increasingly scholars and researchers are being solicited by predatory open
access journals seeking manuscript submissions and abusing the author-pays model
by charging authors with publishing fees without any or proper peer review. Such
questionable editorial practices are threatening the reputation and credibility
of scholarly publishing. To date, no investigation has been conducted on this
phenomenon in the field of rehabilitation. This study attempts to identify
specific predatory journals operating in this field to quantify the phenomenon
and its geographic distribution. Beall's List has been used to this end which,
although not perfect, is a comprehensive and up-to-date report of predatory
publishers. Of the 1113 publishers on the list, 59 journals were identified, for
a total of 5610 published articles. The median number of articles published by
each journal was 21, and the median amount of article processing charges was
$499. Only 1 out of 59 journals was included in the Directory of Open Access
Journals, whereas 7 (12%) were indexed by PubMed. Most of the publishers were
based in India (36%) followed by the United States (25%) and Pakistan (5%), and
25% were without a verifiable address. The data indicate that the threat of
predatory publishing in rehabilitation is real. Physiatrists, physiotherapists,
researchers, and academics operating in this field are advised to use the tools
available to recognize predatory practices before considering publishing in open
access journals.