JAMA Internal Medicine (jama-internal-medicine)

Journal positioning

JAMA Internal Medicine is a JAMA Network specialty journal for clinical research, evidence synthesis, and health-policy scholarship relevant to the practice of adult internal medicine. It favors rigorous, clinically important work — randomized trials, high-quality comparative-effectiveness and observational studies, and analyses that challenge low-value care or inform practice and policy — with a strong emphasis on methodological soundness and direct relevance to patient care and clinical decision making. Underpowered single-center studies, descriptive case series, and analyses with no clear practice implication are a weak fit. This skill is a fit / venue-selection / re-framing aid; it is not clinical or regulatory advice and does not replace the journal's current instructions for authors. Before submitting, re-check the live JAMA Internal Medicine author instructions.

When to trigger

• The author names JAMA Internal Medicine for an internal-medicine clinical or health-services study and wants a fit/framing check.
• A clinical study must be re-framed around a clear practice-changing or policy-relevant question for a general internal-medicine readership.
• The author is choosing between JAMA Internal Medicine, JAMA, and a subspecialty journal.
• The author needs the journal's reporting-guideline, registration, and desk-reject expectations.

Scope & topic fit

• Randomized clinical trials in adult internal medicine, including pragmatic and de-implementation ("less is more") trials.
• Comparative-effectiveness, cohort, and large database studies with rigorous design and confounding control.
• Diagnostic, screening, and prognostic studies with clinically meaningful endpoints.
• Health-policy, quality, value-of-care, and health-services research relevant to internal medicine.
• Systematic reviews and meta-analyses that answer a focused clinical question.

Method & evidence bar

• Studies must be adequately powered with prespecified, patient-centered primary outcomes; surrogate-only endpoints need strong justification.
• The applicable reporting guideline must be followed and its checklist supplied: CONSORT for trials, STROBE for observational studies, PRISMA for systematic reviews.
• Trials require prospective registration; the trial-registration number and a protocol/statistical-analysis plan are expected.
• Observational claims must address confounding, bias, and missing data explicitly; causal language must match the design.
• Effect estimates should be reported with confidence intervals and absolute as well as relative measures; clinical (not just statistical) significance must be argued.

Structure & house style

• JAMA Network format with a structured abstract and a Key Points box; re-check current article types (Original Investigation, Research Letter, etc.) and limits on the live guide.
• The introduction frames a focused clinical question and its importance; the discussion states the practice or policy implication plainly.
• Tables/figures follow JAMA Network statistical-reporting standards; a CONSORT/STROBE flow diagram is expected where applicable.
• Supplements carry the protocol, full statistical methods, and additional analyses.

Official-submission checklist

• Before giving submission-ready advice, read ../../resources/source-basis.md and ../../resources/official-source-map.md; start from the ICMJE and JAMA Network anchors, then cite the current JAMA Internal Medicine page you checked.
• Search the live site for "JAMA Internal Medicine instructions for authors" and follow the current version.
• Re-check article types and word/reference/table limits, structured-abstract and Key Points format, and the JAMA Network statistical-reporting requirements.
• Confirm trial registration, the reporting checklist (CONSORT/STROBE/PRISMA), data-sharing statement, and protocol/SAP submission.
• Re-check IRB/ethics and consent statements, ICMJE authorship and conflict-of-interest disclosure, funding, and AI-use disclosure.
• If the live official instructions conflict with this skill, the official instructions win.

Pre-submission self-check

• The study answers a focused, clinically important question with a clear practice or policy implication.
• The primary outcome is prespecified and patient-centered; the study is adequately powered.
• The correct reporting checklist (CONSORT/STROBE/PRISMA) is completed and attached.
• Trials are prospectively registered with the number in the manuscript; protocol/SAP provided.
• Confounding, bias, and missing data are addressed, and causal language matches the design.
• IRB/consent, ICMJE disclosures, and a data-sharing statement are prepared.

Common desk-reject triggers

• Underpowered or single-center studies with limited generalizability and no clear practice change.
• Observational analyses with inadequate confounding control or overstated causal claims.
• Missing trial registration, protocol, or the required reporting checklist.
• Surrogate-only endpoints presented as clinically definitive.
• Narrow subspecialty interest better served by a specialty journal, or limited general-internal-medicine relevance.

Re-routing decision

• Practice-changing, broadly significant trial → general medicine (jama / NEJM / The Lancet in the natural-science bundle).
• Oncology focus → jama-oncology / annals-of-oncology.
• Cardiology / neurology / nephrology subspecialty → jama-cardiology / jama-neurology / journal-of-the-american-society-of-nephrology.
• Population-health or policy intervention → the-lancet-public-health.
• Psychiatry / surgery focus → jama-psychiatry / jama-surgery.

Output format

[Fit] High / Medium / Low (one-line reason)
[Target] JAMA Internal Medicine
[Specialty tags] <2–3 closest internal-medicine topics>
[Study design / reporting guideline] <RCT-CONSORT / cohort-STROBE / review-PRISMA>
[Method/evidence] <does power, design, and registration clear the bar?>
[Top risk] <the single most likely reason for rejection>
[Official items to re-check] <article type / registration / checklist / ethics / disclosures>
[Re-route suggestion] <if not a fit, a better-matched venue>