Trends of Publication in the Education and Practice Sections of the IJTMB: a Call to Action.

The scope of the IJTMB includes not only publishing scientific research studies, but also to publish education innovation and practice-oriented approaches for all allied health providers whose practice include manually applied therapeutic massage and bodywork. The aims of the Practice and Education sections of the Journal are described in this editorial. The Education section covers topics including curriculum and competencies development, instructional design and delivery, instructional technology, distance learning, and testing/evaluative procedures for both initial education as well as continuing education. Planning, organization, marketing, and management of a successful practice, the incorporation of new scientific findings and methods into clinical practice, new clinical approaches to prevention and treatment of specific health conditions, and ethical issues are included in the Practice section. In an effort to increase publication within these sections we have put forth this call to action. We invite educators and practitioners to submit manuscripts discussing innovations in massage therapy education, how schools and students dealt with the Covid-19 pandemic, practitioners and clients adapted to the pandemic, investigations of the massage therapy profession and about massage therapists, as well as interesting case studies. Copyright

At the IJTMB, our aims are to publish peer-reviewed content that encompasses scientific research, education innovations, and practice-oriented approaches for all allied health providers whose practice include manually applied therapeutic massage and bodywork. In the evaluation of the past two years of publications of IJTMB, we have noted that nearly half of the published articles are in the Research section; however, the Practice and Education sections combined make up less than a quarter of the rest of the published papers (Figure 1). Therefore, while in my last editorial( I discussed one of the editorial goals for improving efficiency and the process of peer review at the Journal, the other goals identified by the team were to increase submissions and publication of papers to both our Education and Practice sections. Described herein are the aims and scope of both the Practice and Education sections of the Journal, as well as a call for papers for those sections.

Figure 1

Percentage breakdown of published articles by section within the IJTMB.

EDUCATION

The scope of the Education section covers topics including curriculum and competencies development, instructional design and delivery, instructional technology, distance learning, and testing/evaluative procedures. This can be during the initial education years (pre-licensure) or continuing education. Past published papers include topics such as online massage therapy education,( the implementation of a research curriculum,( developing curricula for hospital-based massage therapy,( and teaching about case studies.( The five top viewed articles in the Education section published since 2016 are listed in Table 1.

Table 1

Top 5 viewed articles in Education and Practice Sections since 2016

Rank	Title	Issue	Date Published
Education
1	Evaluation of a Gait Assessment Module Using 3D Motion Capture Technology(13)	Vol. 10 No. 1	September 2017
2	Improving Body Mechanics Using Experiential Learning and Ergonomic Tools in Massage Therapy Education(14)	Vol. 11 No. 4	December 2018
3	Developing Capability: Transforming Massage Therapy Education through Inquiry-based Learning(15)	Vol. 11 No. 3	September 2018
4	What Should We Do Different, More, Start and Stop? Systematic Collection and Dissemination of Massage Education Stakeholder Views from the 2017 Alliance for Massage Therapy Educational Congress(16)	Vol. 12 No. 1	March 2019
5	A Canadian Massage Therapy Education Environmental Scan(17)	Vol. 13 No. 4	December 2020
Practice
1	Case Study: The Use of Massage Therapy to Relieve Chronic Low-Back Pain(18)	Vol. 9 No. 3	September 2016
2	Experienced Practitioners’ Beliefs Utilized to Create a Successful Massage Therapist Conceptual Model: a Qualitative Investigation(9)	Vol. 10 No. 2	June 2017
3	Utilizing Chair Massage to Address One Woman’s Health in Rural Ghana West Africa: a Case Report(19)	Vol. 9 No. 4	December 2016
4	The Potential Utility for Massage Therapy During Pregnancy to Decrease Stress and Tobacco Use(20)	Vol. 11 No. 3	September 2018
5	Visceral Manipulation Decreases Pain, Increases Cervical Mobility and Electromyographic Activity of the Upper Trapezius Muscle in Non-Specific Neck Pain Subjects with Functional Dyspepsia: Two Case Reports(21)	Vol. 12 No. 2	June 2019

PRACTICE

Appropriate topics for the Practice section include the planning, organization, marketing, and management of a successful practice, the incorporation of new scientific findings and methods into clinical practice, new clinical approaches to prevention and treatment of specific health conditions, and ethical issues. Case reports and case series are also placed in the Practice section of the Journal; just over half (55.6%) of the papers published in this section are case reports. The remaining articles address topics such as the practice patterns of massage therapists,( attitudes and beliefs of massage therapists about different topics,( ethical issues,( and treatment and protocols for treating a variety of conditions.( Table 1 lists the titles and issue of the top five viewed articles since 2016 in the Practice Section.

MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION

For those who are interested in writing a paper to potentially be included in one of the two aforementioned sections, specific guidelines are in place for the structure of the manuscripts. We previously changed our submission guidelines to make submitting a manuscript easier,( including allowing authors to determine how they would like to format their articles; however all manuscripts, with the exception of case reports, should follow the IMRD (introduction, materials and/or methods, results, and discussion) structure at a maximum of 3,000 words. Papers in these sections need to include a structured abstract of no more than 300 words. Case reports also use a structured abstract of 300 words or less, and use the Adapted CARE Guidelines structure reported by Munk and Boulanger( and should be no more than 2,500 words. All word counts of the main body of the manuscript do not include words within the abstract, tables, figures, or references.

CALL FOR MANUSCRIPTS

As previously mentioned, we would like to invite you, our readers, to submit manuscripts to either the Practice or Education sections of the IJTMB. As a reminder, there are no submission or publication fees for authors. Specifically, we are looking for papers that discuss innovations in massage therapy education and for papers addressing how schools and students dealt with the Covid-19 pandemic. For the Practice section, we are interested how practitioners and clients adapted to the pandemic, investigations of the massage therapy profession and about massage therapists, as well as interesting case studies.

We hope you will consider developing a manuscript in one of these areas and submit it to the IJTMB.