BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine

BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine is published by BioMed Central and is in Zone 3 of Medicine in the CAS Journal Ranking (2025 upgraded edition). By OpenAlex counts of its recent articles, its largest topics are Complementary and Alternative Medicine Studies, Acupuncture Treatment Research Studies and Ethnobotanical and Medicinal Plants Studies, together about 31.9% of its articles. Its main subfields are Complementary and alternative medicine. (generated from OpenAlex topic counts and CAS ranking data)

BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies is an open access, peer-reviewed journal that considers articles on all aspects of complementary therapies, including basic, translational and clinical research. The journal welcomes submissions across a diverse range of topics including pre-clinical investigations into biological mechanisms, herbal pharmacology and toxicology, as well as clinical trials and safety evaluations of therapies. It will consider research on the integration of complementary medicine into healthcare systems, including topics such as professional attitudes, regulation, and economic evaluation, studies on usage patterns and attitudes toward complementary therapies, as well as innovations in research methodology. Topics covered in the journal include: Herbal and natural products Clinical research Traditional medicine systems Manual therapies Mind-body interventions Integration into healthcare Nutrition-based therapies Knowledge and attitudes towards complementary medicine Research methodology in complementary medicine Our research standards We are committed to providing objective evidence for the efficacy or utilisation of complementary medicine and therapies. BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies is committed to evidence-based research. We believe that Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) research should be held to the same standards and evidence threshold as those of medicine research. We welcome manuscripts for submission which meet the following research standards: Clinical and Basic research manuscripts that comply with international and national standards for such work (such as the Declaration of Helsinki or relevant Governmental regulation e.g. the UK’s Medicines for Human Use (Clinical Trials) Regulations). Studies which are adequately controlled (be that compared to a placebo or conventional medicine), anonymized (where appropriate), randomized and of sufficient statistical power to confidently and accurately interpret the effect reported. Studies reporting a CAM treatment/technique compared only to another CAM treatment/technique are not sufficient to test the efficacy of the CAM treatment in question. Studies in which a conventional treatment is supplemented with a CAM technique are only valid if compared to the same conventional treatment supplemented with a placebo. CAM treatments/techniques tested on animal models and/or human patients: It is unethical for such work, on humans or animals, to have taken place without a

From the journal's Aims & Scope

Research area (LetPub): INTEGRATIVE & COMPLEMENTARY MEDICINE

CAS Journal Ranking

Database indexing

ScopusDOAJLetPub

International journal early-warning lists: not listed in any editionLetPub

Indexing the journal's website claims

SCIEMEDLINEEmbaseCASCAB AbstractsPublisher website

Other: Google Scholar, ProQuest, Dimensions, CNKI, Baidu, AGRICOLA, Naver, OCLC, Portico, CLOCKSS, Semantic Scholar

As the journal's website lists them, not checked against each database; for Web of Science editions the records above apply.

Editions, and major and minor categories, are shown separately and never merged into one zone; check which edition your institution uses before you submit or report.

Impact

Impact factor (publisher) 2025

4.4Publisher website · 2026-09-29

5-year impact factor (publisher) 2025

4.5Publisher website · 2026-09-29

CiteScore 2026-06

6.6LetPub · 2026-09-13

SJR 2026-06

0.83LetPub · 2026-09-13

SNIP 2026-06

1.18LetPub · 2026-09-13

h-index

72LetPub · 2026-09-13

h-index

156OpenAlex · 2026-10-01

i10-index

3,620OpenAlex · 2026-10-01

2-year mean citedness

0OpenAlex · 2026-10-01

Share of gold OA articles

100%LetPub · 2026-09-13

Volume

Downloads per year (publisher) 2025

6,300,000Publisher website · 2026-09-29

Sources count differently and were observed at different times, so each source's own value is kept; "publisher" marks figures from the journal's website.

Average review time (community reports)

3–6 weeksLetPub · 2026-09-13

Submission to first decision

21 daysPublisher website · 2026-09-29

Submission to publication (journal-reported)

about 19 weeksDOAJ · 2026-10-25

Peer review

Open peer reviewDOAJ

Community reports come from authors' own submissions (confidence 0.5) and are not a promise from the journal; for publisher figures, the journal's own definitions apply.

• APC information ↗DOAJ
• Fee waivers ↗DOAJ
• Open access statement ↗DOAJ
• License & copyright ↗DOAJ

The journal's website is authoritative for fees; sources were observed at different times and each keeps its own value, without averaging.

Excerpts are quoted from the journal's website; "model summary" lines are written by Workers AI and checked against the text. The journal's website is authoritative.

Publisher

BioMed Central

Country or region

ENGLAND

Language

English

Frequency

Irregular

Founded

2001

ISSN

1472-6882

Electronic ISSN

2662-7671

Official links

• Journal homepage ↗DOAJ
• Submission system ↗LetPub
• Author guidelines ↗LetPub
• Aims & Scope ↗LetPub
• Special issues ↗Publisher website
• APC information ↗DOAJ
• Fee waivers ↗DOAJ
• Open access statement ↗DOAJ
• License & copyright ↗DOAJ
• Peer review process ↗LetPub
• Editorial board ↗LetPub
• Plagiarism policy ↗DOAJ