Academic journal of Health Sciences of the Royal Academy of Medicine of the Balearic Islands
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Academic Journal of Health Sciencies PUBLISH RULES 
 

Instructions to authors

Academic Journal of Health Sciencies is the official journal of the Royal Academy of Medicine of the Balearic Islands and publishes on a quarterly basis new original and unpublished research and review articles, letters to the editor and editorials in the field of health sciences. 

Manuscripts must be prepared in accordance with the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (official version in English available at www.icmje.org), in line with the following instructions to authors. Failure to comply with these instructions will result in a delay in the editorial process and subsequent publication of the manuscript, and may also result in the article being rejected.

Types of articles

Academic Journal of Health Sciencies publishes the following types of articles:

ORIGINALS: Empirical studies on any aspect of research in the field of health sciences in the form of scientific papers comprising the following sections: Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion. They must include a semi-structured abstract (maximum 250 words). The main text of the article (excluding abstract, acknowledgements, references, tables and figures) should not exceed 6,000 words (equivalent to twenty sheets of typed, double-spaced DIN- A4) and should include no more than six tables and/or figures. The maximum recommended number of references is 35.

SHORT ORIGINALS: These are manuscripts having the same characteristics as the originals but they can be published in a short form. Maximum length of the text permitted is 1,200 words, accepting a maximum of two tables or figures.The structure of these manuscripts should be the same as the original manuscripts (Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion) with a structured abstract of 150 words and 15 references at most.

REVIEWS: Systematic reviews and updated reports on the available scientific knowledge on relevant, current topics in the field of health sciences. They should include the following sections: Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion, and Conclusions and Perspectives. The text should not exceed 6,000 words and should include no more than six tables and/or figures and 75 bibliographic references. A semi-structured abstract (maximum 250 words) must be included.

CASE STUDIES: Brief description of a problem or experience relating to professional practice, the publication of which is judged to be of interest in terms of its novel and relevant content. The maximum recommended length of case studies is 1,800 words, with no more than two tables and five figures and up to twenty bibliographic references. An unstructured abstract (maximum 150 words) must be included.

 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: This section includes formally acceptable short scientific observations and opinions on articles recently published in the journal or on other current and important aspects of health sciences. The maximum length of letters is 600 words, and a maximum of one table or figure and up to five references are recommended.

SPECIAL ARTICLES AND OTHER SECTIONS: The journal also may include the following sections: editorial, special articles, book reviews. Contributions appearing in the aforementioned sections may be commissioned. In the case of special articles, the maximum lenght is 3,000 words and an unstructured abstract (maximum 250 words) must be included.

Accompanying cover letter

All articles and papers submitted to Academic Journal of Health Sciencies must be accompanied by a cover letter including:
  1. A description of the type of article submitted (original paper, short original paper, review, special article, etc.).
  2. Explanation, consisting of no more than one paragraph, of the original contribution made by the study and its relevance.
  3. Confirmation that the manuscript is original and is not currently being considered for publication in any other scientific journal.
  4. Declaration regarding the potential existence of any article submitted for publication or already published which might be regarded as redundant publication (see ?Ethical considerations?).
  5. Disclosure of any financial or other type of relationship which might give rise to a conflict of interests (see ?Ethical responsibilities?).
  6. Statement that all the signing authors fulfil the authorship requirements (see ?Ethical considerations?).
  7. Identification of the author or authors acting as guarantors of the paper and description of the specific individual contributions to the paper made by each of the signing authors (see ?Ethical considerations?).
  8. Confirming the transfer of all copyright regarding the publication to tle Reial Acadèmia de Medicina de les Illes Balears (see ?Transfer of copyright?).
  9. Full name, postal address, telephone number and e-mail address of the corresponding author.


Formal aspects of the manuscript

The journal publishes articles in English, Spanish and Catalan. The order of the sections in the manuscript is as follows: title page, abstract and key words in Spanish or Catalan, title in English, abstract and key words in English, main text, acknowledgements, references, tables, figure legends and figures. Abbreviations should be avoided, except in the case of standard units of measurement. The use of abbreviations is especially to be avoided in the title and the abstract. The full spelling of the abbreviated word must be given immediately before the abbreviated form the first time it is used in the text, except in the case of a standard unit of measurement. Units of measurement should be expressed according to the International System. A specific definition should always be given for all chemical, physical, biological and clinical units used in the text.

Title page

The first page of the manuscript shall be the title page, containing a brief but sufficiently informative title of the article or paper, a running title (maximum 50 characters including spaces), followed by the full names of the authors, ORCID number and the details of the department and institutions with which they are affiliated. The full name, postal address, telephone number and e-mail address of the corresponding author should appear in the bottom right corner of the title page. This page should also contain details of any financial support received by the study.

Abstract and key words (in Spanish)

The second page of original papers, reviews, case studies and special articles must contain an abstract in English and Spanish or Catalan. Semi-structured abstracts (originals, reviews) must include the following headings and information:

  1. Objectives: a brief description of the rationale of the study, including a clear statement of its aims.
  2. Methods: including a description of the study's design. Where appropriate, the period of time and the place to which the data refer will be indicated. A succinct description should be given of the population, individuals or phenomena studied, as well as the nature of the intervention, if appropriate. Details should also be given of the type of analysis carried out.
  3. Results: a summary of the principal findings of the study.
  4. Conclusions: the principal conclusions derived directly from the evidence presented in the manuscript. Particular care should be taken to avoid unfounded speculation or generalization. Equal emphasis must be given to positive and negative findings of equal scientific merit. A semi-structured abstract should not exceed 250 words. Unstructured abstracts (in the case of case studies and special articles) should include the same information as a semi-structured abstract, but without the headings, and should not exceed 150 words.

On the same page, following the abstract, a list of the key words (between three and eight) should be given. The purpose of the key words is to complement the title and to facilitate the identification of the article in databases. Where appropriate, Medical Subjects Headings, MeSH) from the Index Medicus, available at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/meshhome.html, should be used, the Spanish or Catalan equivalents of which may be consulted at http://decs.bvs.br/E/homepagee.htm.

Title, abstract and key words (in English)

The third page of the manuscript shall include an exact English translation of the Spanish or Catalan title of the article and, where appropriate, that of the abstract and the key words. Note that this information in English should be given exactly as it will appear in the principal bibliographic databases, the authors being responsible for ensuring that the spelling and grammar are correct.

Introduction

This section should present the framework and the main purposes of the study, without providing a detailed review of the topic. Use only those bibliographic references which are strictly necessary. The last paragraph of this section should contain a clear description of the aim or aims of the study.

Methods

This section should specify the time, place and population covered by the study. A description should be given of the process involved in the selection of the subjects or phenomena studied, including sufficient information on the design, procedures, measuring instruments and methods of analysis applied. The statistical and/or laboratory methods used, including a brief account of any novel or unique techniques, should be described. Additional information, when of particular interest, may also be included in the form of an appendix. When applicable, a brief description should be given of the ethical norms followed by the researchers in the case of studies carried out on persons or animals. Studies involving human subjects must have obtained the express approval of the corresponding institutional, local or national ethics committee, and a statement of that approval must appear in the manuscript (see ?Ethical considerations?).

Results

The results should be presented in a clear and concise manner, accompanied by a minimum of necessary tables and figures. The results should be presented in such a way as to avoid duplicating and unnecessarily repeating data already provided in the text, tables and figures. The appropriate measures of dispersion (standard deviation, confidence intervals, etc.) should be included.

Discussion

This section should present the main findings of the work, emphasizing its original and relevant aspects, and presenting the conclusions derived from the study. Detailed repetition of information or data already presented in the Introduction and Results sections should be avoided. The results obtained should be discussed in relation to those of previous relevant studies, interpreting the differences and similarities observed among the various sets of data available. The limitations of the study should be pointed out and their potential implications for the interpretation of the results should be discussed. The Discussion section should end with a paragraph stating the main conclusions of the study. The conclusions must be relevant to the aims and results of the study, avoiding any assertions for which there is insufficient basis in the observations and data available.

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements should include the names of all those taking part in the study who do not fulfil the authorship criteria (see ?Ethical considerations?). Acknowledgement of any financial and material support that has contributed to the study should also be included. All those persons specifically mentioned in the Acknowledgements section must be informed of and consent to their inclusion in this section. References Bibliographic references should be identified in the text using consecutive superscript Arabic numerals. Under the References heading, citations should be double-spaced and numbered consecutively in the same order in which they appear in the text. Personal communications and any unpublished data which have not been accepted for publication should not be included in the bibliography, but may be cited in brackets within the text. Abbreviations of the titles of journals should adhere to those used in the National Library of Medicine (available at www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=journals). In the case of a journal not included, the complete name of the journal must be given. Bibliographic references should be verified against the original documents to ensure accuracy. Exactness and accuracy of the references is of the utmost importance and must be guaranteed by the authors. The references style should follow the format proposed by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. The following is a list of examples of correct citations for different types of documents. Further examples of citation formats not included in this list may be consulted at www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html.

 

Examples of formats for bibliographic references

Journals (NOTE: a full stop should be used after the abbreviation or name of the journal):

STANDARD JOURNAL ARTICLE: (cite all the authors if there are six or less; if there are seven or more, cite the first six and add ?et al.?). Besalduch Vidal J. Inmunoterapia en inmunología. Medicina Balear 2008; 23 (3): 17-18

ORGANIZATION AS AUTHOR: Grupo de Trabajo DUP España. Estudio multicéntrico sobre el uso de medicimentos durante el embarazo en España (IV). Los fármacos utilizados durante la lactancia. Med Clin (Barc) 1992; 98: 726-30.

NO AUTHOR GIVEN: El VII Congreso Nacional de Reales Academias de Medicina [editorial]. Medicina Balear 2000; 15: 69-70.

Indicació del tipus d?article: Cárdenes M, Artiles J, Arkuch A, Suárez S. Hipotermia asociada a eritromicina [carta]. Med Clin (Barc) 1992; 98: 715-6 Fuhrman SA, Joiner KA. Binding of the third component C3 by Toxoplasma gondii [abstract]. Clin Res 1987; 35: 475ª.

VOLUME WITH SUPPLEMENT: Wessely S. Chronic fatigue syndrome: a 20th century illness? Scand J Work Environ Health. 1997;23 Suppl 3:17-34.

ISSUE WITH NO VOLUME: Moncada S, Artazcoz L. Los accidentes de trabajo en España: un gran problema, mayor olvido. Quadern CAPS. 1992; 17: 63-79.

Books and other monographic works (NOTE: a semicolon must be used after the name of the publisher):

PERSONAL AUTHOR(S): Regidor E, Gutiérrez-Fisac JL, Rodríguez C. Diferencias y desigualdades en salud en España. Madrid: Ediciones Díaz de Santos; 1994

EDITOR(S), COMPILER(S) AS AUTHOR(S): Martínez-Navarro F, Anto JM, Castellanos PL, Gili M, Marset P, Navarro V, editors. Salud Pública. Madrid: McGraw-Hill-Interamericana; 1998.

CHAPTER IN A BOOK: Porta MS, Hartzema AG. The contribution of epidemiology of the study of drugs. In: Hartzema AG, Porta MS, Tilson HH, editors. Pharmacoepidemiology. 2nd ed. Cincinnaty (OH): Harvey Whitney Books Company; 1991.p. 2-17.

CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS: Sanz-Aguado MA. La epidemiología y la estadística. En: Sánchez-Cantalejo E, editor. Libro de Ponencias del V Encuentro Marcelino Pascua; 1995 Jun 16; Granada, España. Granada: Escuela Andaluza de Salud Pública; 1996. P. 35-44.

DISSERTATION: García AM. Estudio de los efectos del ruido ambiental sobre la salud en medios urbanos y laborales. Valencia: Universitat de Valencia; 1990.

Other published material:

DOCTORAL THESIS: Guijarro Pastor JA. Contribución a la bioclimatología de Baleares [tesis doctoral]. Palma de Mallorca: Universitat de les Illes Balears; 1986.

LEGAL MATERIAL: Ley de Prevención de Riesgos Laborales. L. Nº 31/1995 (8 Nov 1995).

NEWSPAPER ARTICLE: Nau JY. Une équipe française decouvre chez la souris une hormone impliquée dans le métabolisme du fer. Le Monde 2002 Abr 5; p. 7 (col. 1-4).

CD-ROM: EPISAME Version for Macintosh [CD-ROM]. Madrid: Escuela Nacional de Sanidad, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia; 1998.

HOMEPAGE/WEB SITE: Instituto Sindical de Trabajo, Ambiente y Salud [página principal en Internet]. Valencia: Instituto Sindical de Trabajo, Ambiente y Health [updated 26 Jul 2003; cited 26 Sep 2003]. Available at: http://www.ccoo.istas.es.

JOURNAL ARTICLE ON THE INTERNET: Berger A, Smith R. New technologies in medicine and medical journals. BMJ [electronic edition]. 1999 [cited 8 Jan 2002]; 319:[approx. 1 p]. Available at: http://www.bmj.com/cgi/ content/full/319/7220/0.

Unpublished material:

IN PRESS: Lillywhite HB, Donald JA. Health prevention in the workplace. Science. In press 2004.

Tables

Tables must be consecutively numbered (using Arabic numerals), following the same order in which they appear in the text. Tables must be double-spaced, on separate pages, and identified by a number and a short but sufficiently explanatory title at the top of the page. Do not use internal horizontal or vertical lines, shading or any other stylistic effects. Each column of the table must contain a brief heading. Lower-case superscript letters in alphabetical order (a,b,c...) should be used for any necessary explanatory footnotes beneath the table.

Figures

Figures must not repeat data already presented in the text or in the tables. Figure legends should be double-spaced. Figures must be identified by means of Arabic numerals which coincide with their order of appearance in the text. For explanatory footnotes in figures, lower-case superscript letters in alphabetical order (a,b,c...) should be used, the notes containing only the information necessary for a correct interpretation of the figure without having to refer to the text. Figures presenting central estimates (mean values, relative risks, etc.) must include the corresponding measures of dispersion (confidence intervals, standard deviation, etc.).

 ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS

Permission for publication. Authors are responsible for obtaining the necessary permission for publication from any institution or institutions which have funded the work.

Protection of persons and research animals. When results of experiments involving human subjects are presented, the manuscript must indicate that the study has adhered to the ethical guidelines of the corresponding ethics committees (institutional, local or national) and the Helsinki Declaration of 1975 in its revised version of 2000. No images, names, initials or any other data should be included which might allow the subjects of the study to be identified. When unavoidable, the authors must obtain the corresponding informed consent of the persons concerned and include a statement about this situation in the manuscript. When experiments using animals are described, the manuscript must indicate that the institutional and national recommendations regulating the care and use of laboratory animals have been followed.

Informed consent Authors must mention in the Methods section that the procedures used on persons participating in the study have been carried out after having obtained the appropriate informed consent.

Redundant or duplicate publication. Authors must inform the editor of the journal of any previous submissions or publications of the same work, whether in whole or in part, which may be deemed redundant or duplicate publication. Bibliographic reference(s) of any such prior publications must be cited and included in the new manuscript. In such cases, a copy of the prior publication of the work which might conceivably be considered as a redundant publication should be submitted together with the manuscript. Authors are also responsible for obtaining permission for the partial reproduction of any material (text, tables or figures) which has previously been published. Permission must be sought both from the author responsible and the publisher of the publication.

Conflict of interests. Authors must disclose any financial or other interests which may have had a bearing on the execution of the study and/or the preparation of the report for publication. The editor of Academic Journal of Health Sciencies reserves the right to publish this information together with the article if he considers it of interest to the readers of the journal. Authorship credit should be based on

  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.
  3. Final approval of the version to be published.

Authors should meet conditions 1, 2, and 3. Academic Journal of Health Sciencies declines all responsibility concerning any possible conflicts deriving from the authorship of the articles published in the journal.

Responsibilities and contributions of authors. All the signing authors of an article are publicly responsible for the corresponding parts of the article?s content. Academic Journal of Health Sciencies encourages authors to identify the person or persons responsible for the manuscript (guarantor) and to accept overall responsibility for the article in its entirety, as well as to describe the specific contribution of each of the authors to the article (contributors). The editor of Academic Journal of Health Sciencies reserves the right to publish this information together with the article. All those who have contributed to the study but do not fulfil the authorship criteria described above should be named in the Acknowledgements section, together with the corresponding description of their contribution to the study.

 COPYRIGHT TRANSFER

In the cover letter accompanying the manuscript authors must state that all copyright for the publication of their work is transferred to the Royal Academy of Medicine of Balearic Islands, which will have the exclusive right to edit, publish, reproduce, distribute copies, prepare derivative reports in paper, electronic or multimedia format and include the article in national and international bibliographic indices or databases.

 EDITORIAL AND EXTERNAL PEER REVIEW PROCESS

All articles submitted to Academic Journal of Health Sciencies are initially screened by the editor and/or the associate editors of the journal. The majority of articles selected in this initial triage are then sent to a minimum of two external referees. The external peer review process is blinded, i.e., the identity of the authors of the manuscript is not disclosed to the referees. Following the external peer review, the article may be accepted or rejected for publication, or it may be provisionally rejected, pending revision by the authors and further peer review. Academic Journal of Health Sciencies reserves the right to make changes or introduce modifications in the text of manuscripts that are accepted for publication in order to improve their readability, without modifying their intellectual content. Manuscripts accepted for publication in the journal will remain the possession of Academic Journal of Health Sciencies and may not be reproduced either in whole or in part without the permission of the journal.

 ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

  1. Academic Journal of Health Sciencies acknowledges receipt of all the manuscripts submitted.
  2. Proof correction. Once an article has been accepted for publication, in due course galley proofs of the article will be sent to the corresponding author. These proofs must be carefully checked and any possible errors marked, and they must be returned with corrections to the editorial office of the journal within a period of 48 hours. At this stage, only minimal changes regarding the spelling, syntax or readability of the text will be accepted. Academic Journal of Health Sciencies reserves the right to accept or reject the corrections made by the authors on the proofs.
  3. The ideas and opinions expressed in the articles and communications published in the journal are those of the authors, and they do not necessarily coincide with those of the journal. Academic Journal of Health Sciencies and the Editorial Committee decline all responsibility with respect to the aforementioned opinions. Neither the journal nor the Editorial Committee guarantee or endorse any product or service advertised in the journal, nor do they guarantee claims made by the manufacturer or supplier in respect of the said product or service.

Submission of manuscripts

Manuscripts should be sent by electronic mail to revista@medicinabalear.org . The cover letter (see above) shall be the e-mail message accompanying the files. The text of the manuscript, together with all references and tables, should be included in a single file, and any figures in separate files. Before submitting their manuscripts to the journal, authors are advised to refer to the following Checklist. Authors are requested to comply with all those aspects covered in the present instructions that are applicable to their manuscript.

CHECKLIST

Once you have finished writing your manuscript, use the following checklist to correct any possible errors before submitting it for publication.

  1. A cover letter for the manuscript should be included
  2. All the files pertaining to the manuscript, including any figures, should be enclosed
  3. You should ensure that the entire text, including tables, references and figure legends, is double-spaced and that all the pages are numbered
  4. The first page or title page of the article must include the full title of the article, a running title, the full names and institutional affiliations of all the authors and the full address of the corresponding author, including his/her telephone number and e-mail address
  5. The title must be clear, concise and sufficiently informative
  6. A complete and accurate English translation must be provided for the title, abstract and key words
  7. The use of abbreviations should be avoided. When they are necessary, the complete terms of each abbreviation must precede its first use in the text
  8. The study should be relevant to the scope of other studies published on the same topic
  9. The justification and aims of the study must be clearly stated
  10. Adequate description should be given of any new or unusual techniques used in the study
  11. The place and period covered by the study must be specified
  12. Adequate description should be given of the population studied and the selection process of the persons or phenomena observed, the materials and equipment used and the strategy followed in the measurements or observations
  13. Indication should be given of the necessary ethical guidelines having been followed, depending on the type of research
  14. The results should be clearly presented, avoiding unnecessary repetition of information given in the text, tables and figures
  15. The conclusions of the study must be based on the results obtained
  16. The bibliography must conform to the journal?s editorial guidelines
  17. Citations in the text must correspond to the bibliographic list
  18. Brief but sufficiently informative titles must be given to tables and figures, as well as any necessary clarifications by means of footnotes
Academic Journal of Health Sciences
ISSN Digital: 2255-0569
Journal of the Royal Academy of Medicine of the Balearic Islands © 2012

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