Journal of Medical Sciences and Health

Authorship
An ‘author’ is someone who has made substantive intellectual contributions to a study.
In accordance with ICMJE guidelines (www.icmje.org), authorship credit requires all the following conditions to be met.

1. Substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data;

2. Drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and,

3. Final approval of the version to be published.

All authors should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for the content. All authors must sign an undertaking accepting responsibility for the submitted manuscript. Authors are required to state their exact contribution to the study; the Journal may print this information.The order of authorship should be decided by all the authors. The journal strongly discourages alterations in the sequence or deletion/addition of authors at any time after submission of the manuscript.

 

Acknowledgements
All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or statistical or writing assistance. Financial and material support should also be acknowledged.

Conflict of interest A conflict of interest exists when a financial or personal relationship of the author may inappropriately influence his or her actions. Conflicts may be personal, commercial, political, academic, or financial. Some examples of financial conflicts of interest include employment, research funding (received or pending), stock or share ownership, payment for lectures or travel, consultancies and non-monetary support. Conflicts, or their absence, must be stated in writing by all authors at the time of submission of the article. The Journal may use information disclosed in conflict of interest and financial interest statements as a basis for editorial decisions. Sources of full or partial funding or other support for the research must be declared. For more information please see www.icmje.org.

Protection of human subjects and animals in research
All studies conducted on human subjects or animals should be approved by the ethics committee or the institutional review board of the institution where the study was performed. When reporting experiments on human subjects, authors should indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national). When reporting experiments on animals, authors should indicate whether the institutional and national guidelines for the care and use of laboratory animals were followed (see ICMR guidelines: icmr.nic.in/ethics_SOP.pdf andicmr.nic.in/animal_ethics.htm).

Patient confidentiality Patients have a right to privacy that should not be infringed without informed consent. Identifying information, including patients’ names, initials or hospital numbers, should not be revealed in written descriptions and photographs. If it is not possible to ensure anonymity, written, informed consent should be obtained from the patient and submitted to the Journal. Identifying details should be omitted if these are not essential but patient data should not be altered to attain anonymity.

Copyright
Authors must agree in writing to transfer to the Journal the copyright for all material submitted, in case of its publication by the Journal. The published manuscript may not be reproduced elsewhere, wholly or in part, without the prior written permission of the Journal.

Plagiarism
Plagiarism is the use of others’ published and unpublished ideas or words (or other intellectual property) without attribution or permission, and presenting them as new and original rather than derived from an existing source. This applies to all forms of documents, published (print or electronic) or unpublished. Authors should make sure that their manuscripts are free from plagiarized material. Providing a reference to the material quoted verbatim from previously published material does not absolve the user of plagiarism. Detection of plagiarism would lead to rejection of the manuscript and debar the publication of any material from the concerned authors for at least three years. The Journal may also send this information to the head of the institution where the authors work with a request for an inquiry in the matter. The Journal may also publish such correspondence in its pages to inform its readers of scientific misconduct.

Dual submission and duplicate publication
The Journal strongly disapproves of ‘Dual submission’, i.e. the submission of the same article simultaneously to different journals for consideration for publication. The authors must give an undertaking (see ‘Author’s declaration’ below) stating that the manuscript has not been submitted to another journal for consideration for publication nor has a substantial part of it been published previously. They should disclose details of any similar or closely-related paper(s) previously published, in press or those currently under review at another Journal. Previous publication of an abstract in the proceedings of meetings (print or electronic) does not preclude subsequent submission for publication, but this information must be provided at the time of submission. In case the manuscript has already been published elsewhere, in any form, details of such publication (including a copy of the submitted/published manuscript) and the reason for submission in the present form must be stated at the time of submission in the covering letter. If dual submission or duplicate publication is found to have occurred, the manuscript will be rejected and the authors barred from future submissions. The Journal may also send this information to the head of the institution where the authors work with a request for an inquiry in the matter. The Journal may also publish such correspondence in its pages to inform its readers of scientific misconduct and such papers may be retracted.

Peer Review
All articles submitted to the Journal are peer-reviewed. The process may differ depending upon the category to which the manuscript belongs. Most of the articles are assessed by two reviewers. Peer reviewers are experts in their chosen field who provide the Journal a written assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of manuscripts, with the aim of identifying the most appropriate and best material for the Journal. Authors may suggest the names and addresses of two experts who, in the authors’ opinion, are best qualified to review the paper. Suggested reviewers should not be recent collaborators or co-authors (within the past 3 years), nor should they have provided substantial advice or critique of the submitted manuscript. Authors may also provide the names of reviewers they wish to be excluded, giving reasons for such a request. The Journal reserves the right to decide on the choice of reviewers. All reviewers are expected to inform the Journal about any conflict of interest while reviewing articles.

Pre-publication proofs and offprints
Proofs of articles, prior to their publication, are provided to authors. These will be sent electronically. The authors may make only the necessary minor corrections at this stage and should answer any queries marked for their attention.. A delay in returning proofs may lead to a delay in publication. Authors of published original articles can download their articles in PDF format from the website. A copy of the article will also be sent through e-mail.

Rejection Based on the comments of reviewers and in conformity with the policies of the Journal, manuscripts found unsuitable for publication will be rejected. The corresponding author will be informed of the rejection, and comments of the reviewers, if relevant, will be provided. The manuscript will not be returned.