Introduction and aim: Scientific journals are a key communication channel for the transmission of scientific information, and the publication of articles is mandatory in the scientific advancements. Open access enables greater visibility of scientific outputs but publication in open access rarely free (Van Norden, 2013; Pourret 2022). The aim of this research is to examine the article processing charge of the journals in Health professions category in SCOPUS database and their types of business models (hybrid, OA or diamond OA).

Methods: We have used Scimago, DOAJ and Sherpa Romeo databases, and journals and publishers’ homepages to collect journals’ data. Using SCImago Journal&County Rank for 2022, journals belonging to the field and category of health professions “Health Professions (miscellaneous)” were filtered and data was downloaded. Data were collected on the number of ¸journals in Scopus, the type of journal (hybrid, open access, diamond journal) and the price of publishing (APC) an original scientific article/review article in open access. Information about the type of the journal was collected in Sherpa Romeo/DOAJ databases, information on the APC was found on the pages of the journal or publisher.

Results: A total of 60 journals belonging to the category of Health professions in Scopus were found, 28 (47%) of them are also in the Web of Science database according to Scimago. Of the 60 journals, 28 are hybrid journals, 32 are in open access (53%), of which 10 are in open access with an APC, and 22 are completely free – diamond journals. The price of publication in all journals is in the range of €0-3,385.00, the average price is median €788 (0- 2895). The average APC is significantly lower in open access journals than in hybrid journals (median 881 (92-2466) vs 2895 (2045-2977) €, which is in line with previously published results in medical field (Siler et al, 2018). Most of the diamond journals are in the 3rd (6 out of 22) and 4th quartiles (9 out of 22) or have only recently (3 out of 22) been included the Scopus database.

Limitations of the study: The study sample is small, and has only 60 journals, while there could be more journals connected with health professions in other Scopus categories. Information about waivers was not collected.

Conclusion: Journals of the 1st and 2nd quartile, which are considered an important criterion for advancement in biomedical field, are mostly hybrid journals and the APC is very high. From all of the above, the conclusion emerges that health professions do not have a large selection of journals for publishing in open access, and therefore it is necessary to teach authors to self-archive their articles.