About Chinese Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine

Chinese Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine

The Chinese Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine (中国康复医学杂志) is the principal academic journal of the Chinese Association of Rehabilitation Medicine, published in Beijing under ISSN 1001-1242. Directory listings date its founding to 1986, and its detailed history begins a few months earlier: the association's journal was founded in June 1985 and renamed the Chinese Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine in November 1985. Sponsored by the Chinese Association of Rehabilitation Medicine, it covers neurological, orthopaedic and cardiopulmonary rehabilitation, rehabilitation engineering and community rehabilitation, and it is the journal of record for the development of modern rehabilitation medicine in China.

Modern rehabilitation medicine is a young specialty in China. The concept was introduced in the early 1980s, the application of "rehabilitation medicine" as a discipline name began in 1982, and the Chinese Association of Rehabilitation Medicine was established in April 1983. A national journal followed within two years — evidence of how quickly the new specialty organised itself — and the journal has published continuously through the specialty's growth from a handful of hospital departments into a required component of China's hospital system.

Founding and Early History

The journal's origins are documented in a peer-reviewed history of rehabilitation medicine in China published in 2024. In June 1985 the "Journal of the Chinese Association of Rehabilitation Medicine" was founded; in November 1985 it was renamed the "Chinese Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine". Reference directories that record a founding year of 1986 reflect the start of its first full volume year under the current title. Either way, the journal belongs to the founding generation of Chinese rehabilitation institutions, alongside the association itself (1983), the Ministry of Health's 1984 requirement that medical colleges establish rehabilitation medicine courses, and the World Health Organization rehabilitation cooperation centres established at Sun Yat-sen Medical University in 1987 and at Tongji Medical College in Wuhan in 1990.

Its volume sequence confirms four decades of continuous publication: volume 29 appeared in 2014, volume 36 in 2021 and volume 40 in 2025. The association whose journal it is has its office at the China-Japan Friendship Hospital in Beijing, and Scopus-derived directories list that hospital as the journal's publisher — a reflection of the close institutional link between the association, its journal and one of China's national rehabilitation centres.

Sponsor and Publisher

The journal is sponsored by the Chinese Association of Rehabilitation Medicine, the national professional association for the specialty, founded in 1983 and a member of the international rehabilitation medicine community — the association joined the International Rehabilitation Medicine Association in 2001. Association sponsorship makes the journal the specialty's official scholarly voice: standards, consensuses and surveys issued through the association's professional committees appear in its pages, including the expert consensus on standardised post-graduation training of Chinese rehabilitation therapists.

Publication is handled in Beijing through the journal's own editorial office, listed in international directories under its Chinese name, with the China-Japan Friendship Hospital recorded as publisher in Scopus-based services. The association's office was set at the China-Japan Friendship Hospital when it was founded in 1983, and the hospital's rehabilitation medicine centre remains a leading national centre, giving the journal an editorial home inside a practising centre of the specialty.

Scope and Subject Coverage

The journal reports the latest research results of rehabilitation medicine in China in a timely manner. Its content, as described in its Scopus-listed journal description, involves the clinical rehabilitation of neurology, orthopaedics, internal medicine, paediatrics, psychiatry, oncology and pain, together with the basic theoretical questions of related disciplines. Its regular features include an academicians' forum, special reviews, and original articles encompassing both basic research and clinical research, as well as traditional medicine rehabilitation.

In practice that scope spans the whole map of the specialty. Neurological rehabilitation — stroke, brain injury, spinal cord injury — is the largest territory. Orthopaedic and musculoskeletal rehabilitation covers fracture, joint replacement and sports injury. Cardiopulmonary rehabilitation has grown into a major theme: the Chinese Association of Rehabilitation Medicine's cardiovascular committee was founded in 1990 as the country's first academic organisation for cardiac rehabilitation, and the journal has carried the field's Chinese programmes and consensuses, including the expert consensus on coronary heart disease rehabilitation and secondary prevention. Rehabilitation engineering, assistive technology and community rehabilitation complete the coverage recorded in its directory description.

Role in Standards, Consensus and Policy

Because it is the association's journal, the Chinese Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine functions as a channel through which the specialty's standards reach practitioners. The 2025 guidelines for the standardisation work of rehabilitation medicine association standards, developed by the Chinese Association of Rehabilitation Medicine under China's Standardization Law, illustrate the system within which the journal operates: association standards regulate clinical practice, ensure care quality and support the training of rehabilitation professionals, and the journal is where such professional guidance is published and debated.

The journal also carries the specialty's self-assessment. Its pages have published the development history of China's rehabilitation medical service system (2019, volume 34), analyses of medical service and quality safety trends in rehabilitation departments of general hospitals from 2016 to 2020 (2023, volume 38), and surveys of community rehabilitation resources. These papers matter because rehabilitation has been identified in national analyses as a weak link in China's medical service system: government policy since 2009 has formally combined prevention, treatment and rehabilitation, and since 2011 general hospitals above the second level have been required to establish rehabilitation medicine departments — a policy expansion whose implementation the journal documents.

Research Themes in Its Pages

Individual research articles show the journal's range. Work on task-oriented rehabilitation robot technology integrating audio-visual and tactile feedback, published as a 2025 cover article (volume 40, issue 4), represents its rehabilitation-engineering strand. Comparative studies of physical therapist competency at home and abroad (2021, volume 36) represent its workforce and education strand, alongside the association's expert consensus on therapist training. Studies of community rehabilitation resource allocation and demand represent its health-services strand.

The journal has also served the specialty's history and internationalisation. Articles in its early volumes reported on rehabilitation departments abroad — a 2001 paper described the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine of the University of Washington for Chinese readers — at a time when Chinese rehabilitation was deliberately learning from international practice. That outward-looking function continues in its coverage of World Health Organization frameworks and international comparisons.

Indexing and Bibliometric Standing

The journal is indexed in Scopus, with coverage recorded from 2006 in SCImago-based services, which classify it in the Rehabilitation subject category. It is cited in international rehabilitation and public-health literature — studies of rehabilitation therapist education in China published in Frontiers in Public Health and histories of the specialty in international journals cite it extensively, using its standard abbreviation Chin J Rehabil Med and its DOI form 10.3969/j.issn.1001-1242.

Within China, the journal's standing rests on its position as the association's principal academic journal and a Chinese core periodical for the specialty. For Chinese rehabilitation physicians and therapists, publication in the journal is a recognised marker of scholarly standing, and its articles form the primary Chinese-language evidence base for rehabilitation practice.

Readership and Professional Community

Readers include rehabilitation physicians, physical, occupational and speech therapists, rehabilitation nurses and engineers, and the managers of rehabilitation departments and hospitals. The journal's community extends across the specialty's institutions: university rehabilitation departments, the China Rehabilitation Research Center network, and the rehabilitation departments that national policy has required general hospitals to build. Its special reviews and forums are written for that whole community, while its original articles serve subspecialists.

For international readers, the journal is the single most informative Chinese-language source on how rehabilitation medicine developed in China — from the introduction of the discipline in 1982, through the founding of the association and its journal in the mid-1980s, to the policy-driven expansion of rehabilitation services in the 2010s and the technology-driven rehabilitation research of the 2020s.

Identifying the Journal

To distinguish this title from related periodicals, use its exact credentials: Chinese title 中国康复医学杂志, English title Chinese Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine, ISSN 1001-1242, sponsored by the Chinese Association of Rehabilitation Medicine, published in Beijing, cited as Chin J Rehabil Med. It is distinct from the Chinese Journal of Rehabilitation Theory and Practice (ISSN 1006-9771), a separate Beijing monthly sponsored by disability and rehabilitation research organisations, and from the English-language Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine published in Europe.

Conclusion

Born with the specialty it serves — founded as the Chinese Association of Rehabilitation Medicine's journal in 1985, renamed within months, and in continuous publication since — the Chinese Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine (ISSN 1001-1242) is the foundational periodical of rehabilitation medicine in China. Its coverage of neurological, orthopaedic, cardiopulmonary and community rehabilitation, its role in publishing the association's standards and consensuses, and its Scopus-indexed international visibility make it an essential source for the history, science and practice of rehabilitation in China.