Top 100-Ranked Clinical Journals' Preprint Policies as of April 23, 2020

Objective: To determine the top 100-ranked (by impact factor) clinical journals' policies toward publishing research previously published on preprint servers (preprints). Design: Cross sectional. Main outcome measures: Editorial guidelines toward preprints, journal rank by impact factor. Results: 86 (86%) of the journals examined will consider papers previously published as preprints (preprints), 13 (13%) determine their decision on a case-by-case basis, and 1 (1%) does not allow preprints. Conclusions: We found wide acceptance of publishing preprints in the clinical research community, although researchers may still face uncertainty that their preprints will be accepted by all of their target journals.