At our recent annual general meeting of the Journal of Forensic Nursing (JFN) Editorial Board held on September 21, 2021, we discussed among other things, the global reach of the journal (see Figure 1). The JFN, the official journal of the International Association of Forensic Nurses (IAFN), now in its 17th year of publication, continues to "address health care issues that transcend health and legal systems by articulating nursing's response to violence." Nowhere in this statement, however, do we talk about our international reach or how we situate the journal within a global context.
Forensic nurses, as well as other healthcare professionals, are able to access the JFN through institutional subscriptions via Ovid, our publisher's medical research platform. Through institutional subscriptions (i.e., universities, colleges, hospitals), the JFN is in 52 countries, providing access to clinicians, researchers, educators, and students on a global level. Of note, the top 10 countries (as of September 15, 2021) with access to the journal via Ovid are the United States, Pakistan, Turkey, Canada, Australia, China, Spain, Italy, Columbia, and the United Kingdom. Whereas some countries on this list are likely to be expected, others are consistently somewhat surprising. Topping the JFN article views and Ovid sessions are readers from the United States, Canada, Australia, England, Turkey, Sweden, Norway, China, South Korea, and the Netherlands, further indicating our global reach. In addition, the number of international visits to the JFN website in 2021 have increased to 71% (as of September 15, 2021), up from 50% at year-end 2020. From this perspective, it is evident that the JFN is attracting a global readership.
Our global reach is also actualized through our status as the official journal of the IAFN, founded in 1992. The membership of the IAFN has grown steadily since then, with membership in this dynamic organization now more than 6,500 strong, with members currently representing 37 countries worldwide including those located in Africa, Asia, Australasia, the Caribbean, Europe, the Middle East, North America, South America, and the South Pacific (C. Presenti, personal communication, October 12, 2021). A personal subscription to the JFN is a member benefit. As such, through the combination of the IAFN's global reach through membership and the JFN's reach through Wolters Kluwer's Ovid platform, the growing global reach of the JFN is indeed noteworthy. The JFN is further aligned with the mission of the IAFN, "to provide leadership in forensic nursing practice by developing, promoting, and disseminating information internationally about forensic nursing science" (Downing, 2021, p. E18). As a journal, we clearly are positioned to showcase articles that exemplify the complexity and diversity of forensic nursing on a global scale.
To date, authors who submitted manuscripts in 2021 represent the following countries: the United States (most submissions) followed by Australia, Canada, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. Others represented include Brazil, Finland, Iceland, India, Iran, the Netherlands, Palestine, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tunisia, and Vietnam. Although international submissions frequently address forensic nursing issues that are being experienced and explored within a distinctive context, as members of the JFN editorial board, we are at times both challenged by the submissions, while simultaneously attempting to support international colleagues who are contributing to the recognition and development of forensic nursing within their particular countries of origin. Unfortunately, some submissions are contextually too specific to a particular issue or region of the world and thus not sufficiently global in their reach, whereas others fail to address the science of contemporary forensic nursing issues. Like all submissions to the journal, some will be accepted, whereas others will be rejected; some will resonate with readers regardless of the forensic focus, whereas others will not.
In a review of the first 15 years of publication, Colbert et al. (2020) found that articles published in the JFN illustrated distinct social, political, definitional, and jurisdictional differences, regarding how forensic nursing is defined and personified, of what forensic nursing is, and what it could become. The articles featured in this final issue of the year continue to reflect and illustrate the diversity of the specialty, representing authors and their scholarship from the United States, China, Turkey, Canada, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. The issues raised herein are in many ways collectively interconnected, as they guide practice, policy, and further research endeavors, while advancing forensic nursing as a specialty on a global scale. The issue begins with an examination of the evolving role of the nurse in addressing elder maltreatment. Next, we feature original articles that address many issues related to sexual assault-self-labeling, a retrospective study from China, traumatic experiences of sexual gender minority individuals, implementation of sexual assault services in a clinic setting, and how sexual assault nurse examiners practice trauma-informed care. Two forensic mental health articles round out the lineup-one addressing patients' expressed nursing care needs, while the other explores staff beliefs towards self-injurious behavior in patients.
In closing this brief editorial, I would like to acknowledge all our authors, reviewers, editorial board members, and readers who individually and collectively have advanced the evidence base of forensic nursing, while positioning the JFN to grow and develop further as a journal of global significance.
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