Tidsskrift for den Norske Legeforening

About Tidsskrift for den Norske Legeforening

Tidsskrift for den Norske Legeforening — Journal Profile

Tidsskrift for den Norske Legeforening, known to its readers simply as Tidsskriftet and in English as The Journal of the Norwegian Medical Association, is the peer-reviewed scientific journal and membership magazine of Den norske legeforening, the Norwegian Medical Association. It is a general medical journal in the fullest sense of that term: a single title that carries original research, clinical reviews and case reports alongside editorials, debate articles, news and professional portrait features for the whole of Norwegian medicine. Founded in 1881, it is one of the oldest continuously published medical journals in Scandinavia, and it remains the principal Norwegian-language channel through which Norwegian doctors publish, argue and keep up with their profession. Its print edition appears 15 times a year and is sent to every member of the Norwegian Medical Association, while everything it publishes is freely readable online at tidsskriftet.no.

At a Glance

• Full title: Tidsskrift for den Norske Legeforening
• English title: The Journal of the Norwegian Medical Association
• Short name: Tidsskriftet
• Print ISSN: 0029-2001
• Online ISSN: 0807-7096
• Publisher and owner: Den norske legeforening (Norwegian Medical Association), Oslo, Norway
• Founded: 1881, as Tidsskrift for praktisk Medicin; renamed in 1890
• Country: Norway
• Languages: Primarily Norwegian; English translation offered for published content
• Frequency: 15 print issues per year; continuous online publication
• Field: General medicine — clinical research, clinical practice, health policy, medical education and professional debate
• Article charges: No submission fee and no article processing charge, as stated by the journal and recorded in the Directory of Open Access Journals
• Licence: CC BY-ND 4.0, as recorded in the Directory of Open Access Journals
• Indexing: PubMed/MEDLINE, Scopus, Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ); level 1 in the Norwegian Register for Scientific Journals

History: A Journal Older Than Its Association

Tidsskriftet began publication in 1881 under the title Tidsskrift for praktisk Medicin (Journal of Practical Medicine) — five years before the Norwegian Medical Association itself was founded in 1886. The association assumed publishing responsibility from the journal's eighth volume in 1888, and in 1890 the title took the name it still carries, Tidsskrift for Den norske lægeforening, in the modern spelling Tidsskrift for den Norske Legeforening. Few national medical journals can show so direct a line from the nineteenth-century world of practical medicine to a modern digital platform: the journal started publishing online at tidsskriftet.no in 1996, and since 1 January 2000 all of its content has been freely accessible to everyone, with the full-text archive on the website reaching back to 2000 and fully searchable. The website today draws around 500,000 page views a month, according to the journal. The print edition remains substantial as well: the journal reports a print run of approximately 34,780 copies (September 2026), distributed to all members of the association, including medical students, and to a range of libraries, hospitals and institutions.

The Publisher: The Norwegian Medical Association

Tidsskriftet is owned by Den norske legeforening, the Norwegian Medical Association, and its editorial office is organised as a department within the association's secretariat in Oslo. The association represents the overwhelming majority of Norwegian physicians — the association itself reports that about 95 per cent of doctors in Norway are members — which gives the journal an unusually complete reach into its national profession: the print edition goes to every member as part of membership. Ownership by a professional association does not mean control of content. The journal states that it is editorially independent in accordance with Norwegian law on editorial responsibility, and that it is edited in line with the principles of the Norwegian Declaration on the Rights and Duties of the Editor (Redaktørplakaten), the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and the Code of Ethics of the Norwegian Press. An editorial board of up to eight members, appointed by the editor-in-chief for four-year terms, advises the editor-in-chief on strategic and operational matters. The association's own material appears in a clearly separated membership section, Aktuelt i foreningen; everything else is produced or edited by the journal's own editorial staff. The journal is a member of Fagpressen, the Norwegian trade press association, and of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Scope and Article Types

Tidsskriftet is a generalist journal, and its stated aims explain its breadth. It sets out to be a medium for medical education that stimulates doctors to maintain and renew their clinical competence; to encourage medical research and professional development; to contribute to the formation of ethical and cultural standards in the medical community; to foster debate on health policy; and to serve as the membership magazine of the Norwegian Medical Association. The paper edition is organised in three sections — debate, science and magazine — and the journal publishes a wide range of article types: original research articles, clinical review articles, case reports, editorials, opinion and debate pieces, news items, and portrait interviews, many of the shorter items written or produced by the journal's own staff. In 2025, by the journal's own count, it published 33 original articles, 12 clinical reviews and 39 case reports, in addition to its debate and magazine content. The journal's DOAJ record summarises its keyword territory as clinical science, clinical practice, health policy, healthcare delivery and medical education. Because the readership is the Norwegian profession as a whole, clinical and health-services topics with Norwegian relevance — the organisation of the Norwegian health service, Norwegian epidemiology, national guidelines and Norwegian clinical experience — sit naturally in its pages alongside general medical science.

Editorial Process and Peer Review

All scientific articles in Tidsskriftet undergo external peer review in addition to editorial assessment before a publication decision, the journal states, while debate material is handled editorially, largely without external review. Authors have a right of appeal against decisions. The journal assesses approximately 1,200 manuscripts a year, and it reports publishing between 35 and 70 per cent of submitted scientific articles, depending on article type; about two of three submitted chronicles and debate articles are published. The time from submission to publication for scientific articles is usually 20 to 30 weeks, while debate articles typically appear in about three weeks; the DOAJ record gives an average publication time of 28 weeks. Published articles carry an online comment field that stays open for one year after publication, a mechanism the journal uses to keep professional discussion attached to the article itself. The journal follows ICMJE recommendations on authorship, disclosure and manuscript preparation, and its membership of COPE signals that publication-ethics cases are handled under COPE guidance.

Publishing Model, Access and Fees

Tidsskriftet operates an open access model of the kind long associated with society publishing in Scandinavia. Everything is published on tidsskriftet.no and is freely accessible to all readers; there is no paywall for the online edition. The journal states plainly that there is no submission fee and no article processing charge (APC) — a position confirmed by its DOAJ record, which records neither an APC nor other author charges. The one cost authors may meet is translation: content is published primarily in Norwegian, and where an article is translated into English, the authors cover the cost of that translation. The DOAJ record lists the journal's licence as CC BY-ND 4.0 and records open access from 2000; the journal adds that a published article may be deposited in an open research archive without delay. Readers who are not association members can subscribe to the print edition — the journal lists a 2026 subscription price of NOK 3,200 plus postage abroad — and the editorial office can be reached through the contact details on the journal's website.

Indexing and Metrics

Article metadata are transferred to PubMed/MEDLINE for indexing shortly after publication, the journal states; the PubMed record shows the article's abstract with a link to the full text on tidsskriftet.no, and articles with an English translation are listed as bilingual. The journal is listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (the DOAJ record was added on 15 April 2020 and covers both ISSNs), and it is covered by Scopus, whose coverage of the title SCImago records from 1946 onward. In Norway's national Register for Scientific Journals (Kanalregisteret), Tidsskriftet is registered as a level 1 publication channel, the standard level for recognised scientific journals in the Norwegian funding model.

On the SCImago ranking built from Scopus data, the journal's 2025 SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) is 0.159, placing it in the fourth quartile (Q4) of the Medicine (miscellaneous) category, with an h-index of 37 and 590 documents published in 2025 — a large annual volume that reflects its dual role as research journal and profession-wide magazine. The OpenAlex source record for the journal (resolved from its ISSNs at the time of checking) counts 17,292 works and 18,993 citations, an h-index of 37 and a two-year mean citedness of 0.187. These figures need their context: a journal publishing mainly in Norwegian, for a national profession, will always show modest international citation indicators compared with English-language specialty titles, and its domestic influence — measured in readership across the whole Norwegian medical profession — is not what citation databases capture.

How to Submit

Submissions are made through the journal's website, tidsskriftet.no, where the author pages set out the requirements for each article type, including formatting, reference style and the journal's editorial expectations. Manuscripts should be prepared following the ICMJE recommendations, which the journal explicitly works to, and authors should expect the two-stage process the journal describes: editorial assessment first, then external peer review for scientific articles. Because the journal publishes primarily in Norwegian, international authors should consider whether their topic has the Norwegian relevance the readership expects, and should factor the journal's stated translation arrangement into their plans — English translation is offered, at the authors' cost. There is no charge to submit and no charge on acceptance. Authors whose work is declined have a stated right of appeal.

Similar Journals

Readers comparing national medical association journals in Northern Europe will know Tidsskriftet's closest counterparts: Ugeskrift for Læger, the journal of the Danish Medical Association; Läkartidningen, published for the Swedish Medical Association; and Læknablaðið, the Icelandic Medical Journal — all general medical journals serving their national professions in their national languages, and all ranked alongside Tidsskriftet in the SCImago Nordic listings. Within Norway, the specialist counterpart is Norsk Epidemiologi (Norwegian Journal of Epidemiology), the journal of the Norwegian Epidemiological Association, and the medical-history and health-policy journal Michael, published by the Norwegian Medical Society, covers the humanities side of Norwegian medicine that Tidsskriftet also touches in its magazine pages.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the ISSNs of Tidsskrift for den Norske Legeforening? The print ISSN is 0029-2001 and the online ISSN is 0807-7096, as printed on the journal's own website and recorded in DOAJ and OpenAlex.

Who publishes Tidsskriftet? The journal is owned and published by Den norske legeforening, the Norwegian Medical Association, in Oslo, Norway, and edited by an editorial office organised as a department of the association while remaining editorially independent under Norwegian law.

Is Tidsskriftet open access? Yes. All content on tidsskriftet.no is freely accessible, and has been since 1 January 2000; the journal is listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals with a CC BY-ND 4.0 licence recorded.

Does Tidsskriftet charge authors? No submission fee and no article processing charge apply, according to the journal and its DOAJ record. Authors pay only if they use the journal's English translation service.

What language does Tidsskriftet publish in? Primarily Norwegian, with English translation offered; PubMed records translated articles as bilingual.

Is Tidsskriftet indexed in PubMed and Scopus? Yes. The journal states that article metadata go to PubMed/MEDLINE shortly after publication, and Scopus coverage is reflected in the journal's SCImago record, with coverage from 1946.

How long does publication take? The journal states that scientific articles usually take 20 to 30 weeks from submission to publication; debate articles appear much faster, in about three weeks.

How often does Tidsskriftet appear? The print edition is published 15 times a year and sent to all members of the Norwegian Medical Association; online publication is continuous.

Inside the Journal: Sections and Content Mix

The three-part structure of the print edition — debate, science and magazine — is the clearest expression of what Tidsskriftet is for. The science section carries the peer-reviewed core: original articles reporting Norwegian and international research, clinical reviews that digest a field for practising doctors, and case reports, which the journal publishes in notable numbers (39 in 2025) because they serve its educational mission for clinicians who meet rare presentations in ordinary practice. The debate section is where Norwegian health policy is argued out in public: hospital structure, resource priorities, professional ethics, working conditions and the politics of the health service, written by doctors, health leaders and commentators, and handled on a fast editorial track of about three weeks so that argument stays current. The magazine section carries news, portrait interviews and features produced largely by the journal's own staff — the material that makes the journal a profession's shared reading rather than only a research outlet. Online, every article page carries a comment field that remains open for a year, and the journal treats those threads as part of the publication: post-publication discussion by named professional readers is a deliberate extension of the debate section into the scientific one. The journal also maintains a podcast presence on its website, reflecting the same mixed mission in audio form.

Editorial Standards and Ethics

Tidsskriftet's standards framework is unusually explicit for a national journal, and it is worth setting out because authors from outside Norway sometimes underestimate it. Editing follows the Norwegian Declaration on the Rights and Duties of the Editor, the instrument that guarantees the editor's independence from the owner — in this case the association that also employs many of its readers. The journal works to the ICMJE recommendations, the near-universal standard for medical journal authorship, disclosure of interests, trial reporting and manuscript preparation, and it is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics, whose flowcharts and guidance govern its handling of suspected misconduct, plagiarism and authorship disputes. It also observes the Code of Ethics of the Norwegian Press for its journalistic content, and belongs to Fagpressen, the Norwegian trade press association. Scientific articles pass both editorial assessment and external peer review; debate content is edited rather than externally reviewed, and the journal is transparent about that distinction. Authors have a right of appeal, a safeguard that Norwegian editorial tradition takes seriously.

Who Reads Tidsskriftet — and Who Publishes in It

The readership is, by design, close to the whole of Norwegian medicine. The print edition goes to every member of the Norwegian Medical Association, including medical students, and the association counts roughly 95 per cent of Norwegian doctors as members; libraries, hospitals and institutions receive it as well. Online, the journal reports around 500,000 page views a month, a figure that reflects use by doctors checking clinical content in the working day as much as by researchers. Its authors are correspondingly Norwegian-centred: hospital clinicians, general practitioners, public-health doctors and health-services researchers publishing work whose first audience is the Norwegian profession. That positioning cuts both ways, and an honest profile should say so. For research whose importance is primarily Norwegian — studies of the Norwegian health service, Norwegian patient populations, national guideline debates — Tidsskriftet offers unmatched domestic reach and a PubMed-indexed, peer-reviewed record. For work aimed at an international specialty audience, its Norwegian-language pages and fourth-quartile citation standing make it a complement to, rather than a substitute for, an English-language specialty journal. The journal's own aim is the domestic one, and against that aim its combination of reach, independence and archive depth — more than 140 years of continuous publication — is difficult to match in Norway.

Sources

This profile is based on the journal's own website (tidsskriftet.no, about pages in Norwegian and English, consulted October 2026), its record in the Directory of Open Access Journals (publisher, languages, charges, licence and review arrangements), SCImago journal data built on Scopus (SJR 0.159 for 2025, Q4 in Medicine (miscellaneous), h-index 37, coverage from 1946), and the OpenAlex source record resolved from the journal's ISSNs (17,292 works, 18,993 citations, h-index 37 at the time of checking). Figures are attributed to their sources in the text and describe the position at the time of checking.