ABSTRACTING AND INDEXING

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INSTRUCTIONS FOR AUTHORS

Focus and Scope

International Journal of Health Sciences (IJHS) is indexed in PubMed, and has been approved for indexing and abstracting in Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) by Thomson Reuters (wokinfo.com/productstools/multidisciplinary/esci/). IJHS is a peer-reviewed journal that publishes articles pertaining to all fields of medical sciences including medicine, dentistry and applied medical sciences, which provide contribution to medical knowledge. Articles may include new experimental methods of medical importance, new experimentally obtained results, new interpretation of existing results or data pertaining to clinical problems, or epidemiological work of substantial scientific significance. All such articles should aim for the development of medical concepts rather than merely recording the facts. Incomplete studies will be strongly discouraged. The journal categorizes articles into Original, Review, Case Report, Rapid communication and Letter to the Editor. Each type of article has a special format and should comply with the updated IJHS Instructions for Authors, which are published in all issues.

Articles involving human/animal specimen, patients/volunteers, patient images, or case reports: Studies on these subjects require ETHICAL APPROVAL from Institutional Review Board/Local Ethical Committee and PATIENTS CONSENT. If the patient has died, then consent for publication must be sought from the next of kin of the patient. Both ETHICAL APPROVAL and PATIENTS CONSENT statements should be documented in the article, if appropriate.

POLICIES

Please follow the links below for journals editorial policies

• Focus and Scope
• Instructions for Authors
• Peer Review Process
• Open Access Policy
• Article Withdrawal Policy
• Copyright Notice and Privacy Statement
• Checklist for Authors
• Guidelines for Reviewers

Manuscript Submission

All manuscripts must be submitted through the journal's online submission system athttp://www.ijhs.org.sa. Submissions made via email or mailed to the editorial office will NOT be processed. An author submitting the manuscript for the first time is required to register online and create a profile as an author. This enables author to receive login credentials for manuscript submission. An author declaration is a mandatory part of a submission. This covers a number of logistic issues which are described in Peer Review Process. Before submission make sure that the manuscript conforms to the journal guidelines for the preparation of the manuscript.

Please note taht the journal doesn not charge any fees for publishing, and we can't give any estimate of the time to publish an article since the review process depends upon the reviewers processing time, the editorial assessment, and production.

The following files need to be submitted with every arricle 

-Cover letter: A letter stating the origincality of research and why you think it should be published.

-Title page : This page should contains names, affiliation and the corresponding author.

-Article Text: The manuscript file in word format NOT containig the authors or any identifying information

-Images (images must be submitted here in high resolution in a compressed file), All images in high resolution as to the guidelines below should be uploaded again here. 

-Supplementary Materials (optional)

-Datasets (Optional)

Editorial Office Contact Information:

IJHS, College of Medicine, P.O. Box 6040, Qassim University, Al-Qassim 51432, Saudi Arabia. Tel.: 966-16-380-1557; Fax: 966-16-380-1557; e-mail:editor@ijhs.org.sa

Article Types

For submission of the following article types, please follow the links in the list below:

Original Articles

Review Articles

Case Reports/Case series

Rapid/Special/Short Communications

Letters to the Editor

Editorials

Original Articles

Manuscript must be in good English, typewritten using Times New Roman font size 12 only, double-spaced with one inch margin on all sides.

All manuscripts must be accompanied by a certificate signed by the corresponding author and all coauthors that they have seen and approved the final version of the manuscript and that the article has NOT been published or submitted to any other journal for publication. The corresponding author is responsible for obtaining permission from the copyright owner for the use of any copyrighted material in the submitted article.

Each original article must contains:

1.Title page

Title page should contain the following information:

1. Complete title of the article
2. Name(s) of author(s)
3. Department(s)
4. Institution(s) at which work was performed
5. Official phone/fax no, mobile phone no, personal e-mail address of the corresponding author, and institutions address.

2. Structured Abstract

Abstract should be factual condensation of the entire work and should NOT exceed 250 words and must be written under the following subheadings:

1. Objectives
2. Methods
3. Results
4. Conclusion

3.Text

Text must be arranged under the following headings:

1. Introduction
2. Methods
3. Results
4. Discussion
5. Conclusion(s)
6. Ethics approval and consent to participate
7. Availability of data and material (Details - https://authorservices.taylorandfrancis.com/data-sharing-policies/data-availability-statements/)
8. Competing interests
9. Funding Statement
10. Authors’ contributions
11. Acknowledgements (if any)
12. ORCID link of the corresponding author (https://orcid.org/login)

Introduction provides a brief survey of literature, purpose of the study, etc.; the Methodology and procedures should be concise but detailed enough to enable the reader to reproduce the experiment. Commonly used procedures and methods need not be described but require a reference to the original source. In Result Section only findings, presented in the form of tables or figures, should be included without duplication of presentation and no discussion of the significance of the data. Discussion should present the significance of the data under the prevalent understanding of the phenomenon. Speculative discussion is allowed but it should be concise and corroborated by the presented data. Conclusion summarizes the study and is drawn from the results and discussion. Acknowledgements, if any, should be placed at the end of the text and before references.

4. References

References should be listed consecutively as NUMERICAL in PARENTHESES and must be in SUPERSCRIPT. The final bibliography should be in the order in which they are quoted in the text and written in œVancouver Style as mentioned below:

(i). Standard journal article.

Rasheed Z, Haqqi TM. Endoplasmic reticulum stress induces the expression of COX-2 through activation of eIF2α, p38-MAPK and NF-κB in advanced glycation end products stimulated human chondrocytes. Biochim Biophys Acta. 2012;1823:2179-89.

For seven or more authors, list only first six and add et al as mentioned below:

Rasheed N, Ahmad A, Singh N, Singh P, Mishra V, Banu N, et al. Differential response of A 68930 and sulpiride in stress-induced gastric ulcers in rats. Eur J Pharmacol. 2010;643:121-8.

(ii). Chapter in a book.

Rasheed Z, Haqqi TM. Cytokine networks and MAPKs “ towards new therapeutic targets for rheumatoid arthritis. In: Preedy VR, Hunter R, eds. Cytokine Modern insights into disease from molecules to man. Enfield, Science 2011; 31-47.

5. Tables and Figures (or Images)

Tables and figures, complete with legends and footnotes, should be on separate pages. The tables and figures pages should be consecutively numbered at the end of the article. Position of the tables or figures in the text must be indicated.

Instructions for Preparation of Images:

Please note: An image can refer to the following: Graphs, photographs, maps, charts, paintings, drawings, diagrams, etc.

Images must be embedded within the manuscript text of the article. Once the article accepted for publication, the author may be asked for an image in high resolution file format.

It is strongly recommended before embedding images in the manuscript, images must be prepared as mentioned below in the image specifications section.

Image specifications

Images must be prepared in accordance with the instructions mentioned on the PubMed Central website: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/pub/filespec-images/

The key factor for preparation of images for sufficient quality is images must have a minimum resolution of 300 dots per inch (dpi) for the grayscale (or black and white) and at least 600 dpi for color scale. The acceptable image formats are tiff, jpeg, gif, psd or png.

Image Copyright

For any image that the authors have not made themselves, the authors will need to have written permission to reproduce that image, even if the image is posted on the internet. It is the authors responsibility to obtain permission to use the images, not the publishers. Permission must be obtained in writing before the article can be submitted.

For complete information, please visit the Copyright Agency Limited website: http://www.copyright.com.au/get-information/about-copyright

SYSTEMATIC REVIEWS / META-ANALYSIS (NOT Simple Reviews)

 Systematic Reviews or Meta-Analysis should be systematic, critical assessments of literature and data sources pertaining to clinical or basic sciences topics that includes a statistical technique for quantitatively combining the results of multiple studies that measure the same outcome into a single pooled investigation. Data must be searched for and selected systematically for inclusion and critically evaluated, and the search and selection process must be mentioned. The text should NOT exceed 6000 words excluding abstract, references, tables and figures.

Each of the sections of these articles should include specific sub-sections as follows:

 Structured Abstract: (Not exceed 250 words):

1. Objectives 
2. Methodology
3. Results
4. Conclusion

Introduction:

1. Rationale
2. Objectives
3. Research question

Methods:

1. Study design
2. Participants, interventions, comparators
3. Systematic review protocol
4. Search strategy
5. Data sources, studies sections and data extraction
6. Data analysis

Results:

1. Provide a flow diagram of the studies retrieved for the review
2. Study selection and characteristics
3. Synthesized findings
4. Risk of bias

Discussion:

1. Summary of main findings
2. Limitations
3. Conclusions

 For all other information’s including title page, typing and reference style, please follow the original articles instructions.

CASE REPORTS/CASE SERIES

The case report/case series must contain genuinely new information. The reports should have clinical significance, new adverse effect(s) of a drug or other unique first time observations, etc. Patient consent for publication must be obtained from the patient in written or, if this is not possible, the next of kin before submission. The author(s) must have been involved in the care of the patient.

Case Report/case series should contain a single paragraph summary and text should not exceed 1000 words (excluding summary, references, tables and figures) with maximum 10 bibliographic references and either three figures or three tables. Each case report/case series must contain:

1. Summary (should not exceed 120 words)
2. Introduction
3. Case Presentation
4. Discussion
5. Conclusion
6. Patient consent
7. Availability of data and material (Details - https://authorservices.taylorandfrancis.com/data-sharing-policies/data-availability-statements/)
8. Competing interests
9. Funding Statement
10. Authors’ contributions
11. Acknowledgements (if any)
12. ORCID link of the corresponding author (https://orcid.org/login)

For all other information including title page, typing and reference style, please follow the instructions for original articles.

RAPID/SPECIAL/SHORT COMMUNICATIONS

Rapid/Special/Short communication should be complete work, such as complete results of a short pilot study, not merely a preliminary report and should not exceed 1500 words with one figure and/or one table. An editorial decision will be provided rapidly without reviews. For writing and references style, follow the same instructions listed above.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Opinions on topics and articles recently published in the journal will be considered for publication if they are objective and constructive in nature and provide some academic or clinical interest to the readers. These letters may also be forwarded to the author of the cited article for possible response. The editor reserves the right to shorten these letters, delete objectionable comments, make other changes, or take any other suitable decision to comply with the style and policies of the journal. For writing and references style, follow the same instructions listed above.

EDITORIALS

Editorial will be written by one member of the editorial board as solicited by the Editor-in-Chief. The editorial is generally a scientific review on one or two of the current topics pertaining to medical sciences.

PEER REVIEW PROCESS

1. Manuscript Processing

Upon initial submission of the manuscript, the author will be acknowledged of the receipt via e-mail. Initially an article will be reviewed by one member of the Editorial team to judge the quality of the paper. Articles written in poor English language or not conforming to IJHS guidelines will either be rejected or returned to the authors to rectify the shortcomings. Manuscripts deemed proper should be forwarded to at least two subject experts to provide their unbiased input. Acceptable manuscripts will be checked for data analysis and verification of references before the author will be notified about the status of the paper with any suggestions for modifications. Finally accepted articles should be forwarded to the printer for typeset and formatting, etc. and the proof will send to the authors for proof reading, before publication.

2. Peer Review Policy

Unbiased, independent, critical assessment is an intrinsic part of all scholarly work, including the scientific process. Peer review is the critical assessment of manuscripts submitted to journals by experts who are not part of the editorial staff, and is, therefore, an important extension of the scientific process. Each article submitted to IJHS for publication is reviewed by at least two senior specialists of the concerned specialty. The œdouble blind process is strictly followed and, in certain controversial cases, the opinion of a 3rd reviewer can also be sought.

3. Conflict of Interest

Conflict of interest exists when as author (or the author's institution), reviewer, or editor has financial or personal relationships that inappropriately influence (bias) his or her actions (such relationship are also known as dual commitments, competing interests, or competing loyalties). However, conflicts can also occur for other reasons, such as personal relationships, academic competition, and intellectual passion. Increasingly, individual studies receive funding from commercial firms, private foundations, and the government. The conditions of this funding have the potential to bias and otherwise discredit the research. When authors submit a manuscript, they are required to disclose all financial and personal relationships that might bias their work. To prevent ambiguity, authors must state explicitly whether potential conflicts do or do not exist.

It is the discretion of editorial committee of IJHS to resolve any conflict of interest between the author(s) and reviewers. Editors may choose not to consider an article for publication if they feel that the research is biased by the sponsors funding the research project.

4. Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and representing them as ones own original work. Within the academia, it is considered dishonesty or fraud and offenders are subject to academic censure. Plagiarism can be unintentional or intentional, reproducing academic material without appropriate credit to the original authors. Similarly self plagiarism is the re-use of significant, identical or near identical portions of ones own work without citing the original work. This is also known as œRecycling fraud. Worst form of plagiarism is to steal the whole article from some journal and publish it under ones own name in another journal. The Editorial Committee of IJHS will blacklist any author found to be guilty of plagiarism. The name of author(s) committing plagiarism will also be disseminated to editors of other medical journals.

5. Ethical Issues

Human clinical trials and studies conducted in animals (or not) must have been approved by an Institutional Review Board (IRB). In the absence of such a formal ethics review committee, the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000 and/or the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, as adopted and promulgated by the United States National Institutes of Health, must be followed. If doubt exists whether the research was conducted in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration, the authors must explain the rationale for their approach, and demonstrate that the institutional review body explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study. In case of any study involving clinical trial, taking of informed consent of patients is mandatory. Whenever editorial committee of IJHS feels necessary, the research paper will be referred to the œResearch Ethic Committee of Qassim University for its evaluation and approval.

6. Editorial Committee

The Editorial committee consisting of the Editor- in-Chief, Associate Editor, Editors, Assistant Editor(s) and the editorial secretaries meet at least twice a month to expedite the business of the journal. The editorial committee follows the guidelines provided by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors in œUniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals: Writing and Editing for Biomedical Publication which can be downloaded fromhttp://www.icmje.org/

7. Advisory Board

An advisory board comprising of members with significant professional experience in different fields of medical sciences helps the Editorial Committee in policy matters when needed. Senior specialists from Saudi Arabia, as well as professionals from foreign countries are members of the Board.

OPEN ACCESS POLICY

IJHS provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports for global exchange of knowledge. Publication in IJHS is fully supported by Qassim University; therefore there is NO PUBLICATION CHARGES for the authors.

ARTICLE WITHDRAWAL POLICY

Submission of an article to IJHS implies that the work has NOT been published or submitted elsewhere, therefore, the journal is strongly against unethical withdrawal of an article from the publication process after submission. Once the article is submitted, the author grants the editorial board full publishing rights and it is the absolute right of the editorial board to decide on article withdrawals. For genuine withdrawal, the corresponding author should submit a request which must be signed by all co-authors explaining the reason of withdrawing the manuscript. The request will be processed by the editorial board and only serious genuine reasons will be considered if possible. The decision of the editorial board will be final and not negotiable. Unethical withdrawal or no response from the authors to editorial board communication will be subjected to sanction a ban of 4 years to all authors, and their institute will also be notified.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

Authors must agree to the following terms:

1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work in its original publication form (pdf) with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
3.  Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) as it can lead to productive exchange and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).

PRIVACY STATEMENT

The names and email addresses entered in the journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of the journal and will not be made available for any other purpose and will not be shared to any other party.

SUBMISSION PREPARATION CHECKLIST

As part of the submission process, authors should require checking off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.

1. The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration.
2. The submission file is in ˜Microsoft Word document file format.
3. The text is double-spaced; uses a 12-point font; employs italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses); and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points, rather than at the end.
4. Submit a single manuscript file that contains title page, abstract, all text files (introduction, methods, results, discussion, conclusion(s), ethics approval and consent to participate, availability of data and material, competing interests, funding statement, authors’ contributions, acknowledgements (if any), ORCID link of the corresponding author), figures, tables, and references.
5. References should be listed consecutively as NUMERICAL IN PARENTHESES and must be in SUPERSCRIPT. The final bibliography should be in the order in which they are quoted in the text and must be written in Vancouver's style.

GUIDELINES FOR REVIEWERS

1. An unpublished manuscript is a privileged document. Please protect it from any form of exploitation. Don't cite a manuscript or refer to the work it describes before it has been published and don't use the information that it contains for the advancement of your own research or in discussions with colleagues.
2. Adopt a positive, impartial attitude toward the manuscript under review, with the aim of promoting effective and constructive scientific communication. If you believe that you cannot judge a given article impartially, please return it immediately to the editor.
3. Reviews must be completed within 3 weeks. If you know that you cannot finish the review within that time, immediately return the manuscript to the editor.
4. In your review, consider the following aspects of the manuscript: -

1. Significance of research question or subject studied.
2. Originality of work: It should be checked through plagiarism software.
3. Appropriateness of approach or Methodology.
4. Adequacy of experimental techniques.
5. Soundness of conclusions and interpretation.
6. Relevance of discussion
7. Adherence to style as set forth in instructions to authors.
8. Adequacy of title and abstract.
9. Appropriateness of figures and tables.
10. Length of article.
11. Adherence to correct nomenclature (genetic, enzyme, drug, biochemical etc.).
12. Appropriate literature citations.

1. Any help you can give in clarifying meaning will be appreciated. If you wish to mark the text of the manuscript, use a pencil or make a photocopy, mark it, and return it together with the original.
2. You can be particularly helpful in pointing out unnecessary illustrations and data that are presented in both tabular (and graphic) form and in detail in the text. Such redundancies are a waste of space and readers time.
3. A significant number of authors have not learnt how to organize data and will be benefit from your guidance.
4. Do not discuss the paper with its authors.
5. In your comments intended for transmission to the author, dont make any specific statement about the acceptability of a paper. Suggested revision should be stated as such and not expressed as conditions of acceptance. Present criticism dispassionately and avoid offensive remarks.
6. Organize your review so that an introductory paragraph summarizes the major findings of the article, gives your overall impression of the paper and highlights the major shortcomings. This paragraph should be followed by specific numbered comments which if appropriate may be subdivided into major and minor points.
7. Confidential remarks directed to the editor should be typed (or handwritten) on a separate sheet, not on the review form. You might want to distinguish between revisions considered essential and those judged merely desirable.
8. Your criticisms, arguments and suggestions concerning the paper will be most useful to the editor and to the author if they are carefully documented. Do not make dogmatic, dismissive statements, particularly about the novelty of work. Substantiate your statements.
9. Reviewers recommendations are gratefully received by the editor. However, since editorial decisions are usually based on evaluations derived from several sources, reviewers should not expect the editor to honor every recommendation.
10. Categories of recommendation: accept, reject, modify, or convert to some other form. Very few papers qualify for œaccept upon original submission for publication except for minor style changes.
11. Keep a copy of the review in your files. The manuscript may be returned to you for a second review. You might require this copy to evaluate the authors responses to your criticisms.

Peer Review Process

1. Manuscript Processing

Upon initial submission of the manuscript, the author will be acknowledged of the receipt via e-mail. Initially an article will be reviewed by one member of the Editorial team to judge the quality of the paper. Articles written in poor English language or not conforming to IJHS guidelines will either be rejected or returned to the authors to rectify the shortcomings. Manuscripts deemed proper should be forwarded to at least two subject experts to provide their unbiased input. Acceptable manuscripts will be checked for data analysis and verification of references before the author will be notified about the status of the paper with any suggestions for modifications. Finally accepted articles should be forwarded to the printer for typeset and formatting, etc. and the proof will send to the authors for proof reading, before publication.

2. Peer Review Policy

Unbiased, independent, critical assessment is an intrinsic part of all scholarly work, including the scientific process. Peer review is the critical assessment of manuscripts submitted to journals by experts who are not part of the editorial staff, and is, therefore, an important extension of the scientific process. Each article submitted to IJHS for publication is reviewed by at least two senior specialists of the concerned specialty. The 'double blind process is strictly followed and, in certain controversial cases, the opinion of a 3rd reviewer can also be sought.

3. Conflict of Interest

Conflict of interest exists when as author (or the author's institution), reviewer, or editor has financial or personal relationships that inappropriately influences (bias) his or her actions (such relationship are also known as dual commitments, competing interests, or competing loyalties). However, conflicts can also occur for other reasons, such as personal relationships, academic competition, and intellectual passion. Increasingly, individual studies receive funding from commercial firms, private foundations, and the government. The conditions of this funding have the potential to bias and otherwise discredit the research. When authors submit a manuscript, they are required to disclose all financial and personal relationships that might bias their work. To prevent ambiguity, authors must state explicitly whether potential conflicts do or do not exist.

It is the discretion of editorial committee of IJHS to resolve any conflict of interest between the author(s) and reviewers. Editors may choose not to consider an article for publication if they feel that the research is biased by the sponsors funding the research project.

4. Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and representing them as one's own original work. Within the academia, it is considered dishonesty or fraud and offenders are subject to academic censure. Plagiarism can be unintentional or intentional, reproducing academic material without appropriate credit to the original authors. Similarly self plagiarism is the re-use of significant, identical or near identical portions of one's own work without citing the original work. This is also known as 'Recycling fraud. Worst form of plagiarism is to steal the whole article from some journal and publish it under one's own name in another journal. The Editorial Committee of IJHS will blacklist any author found to be guilty of plagiarism. The name of author(s) committing plagiarism will also be disseminated to editors of other medical journals.

5. Ethical Issues

Human clinical trials and studies conducted in animals (or not) must have been approved by an Institutional Review Board (IRB). In the absence of such a formal ethics review committee, the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000 and/or the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, as adopted and promulgated by the United States National Institutes of Health, must be followed. If doubt exists whether the research was conducted in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration, the authors must explain the rationale for their approach, and demonstrate that the institutional review body explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study. In case of any study involving clinical trial, taking of informed consent of patients is mandatory. Whenever editorial committee of IJHS feels necessary, the research paper will be referred to the 'Research Ethic Committee of Qassim University for its evaluation and approval.

6. Editorial Committee

The Editorial committee consisting of the Editor- in-Chief, Associate Editor, Editors, Assistant Editor(s) and the editorial secretaries meet at least twice a month to expedite the business of the journal. The editorial committee follows the guidelines provided by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors in 'Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals: Writing and Editing for Biomedical Publication which can be downloaded from http://www.icmje.org/

7. Advisory Board

An advisory board comprising of members with significant professional experience in different fields of medical sciences helps the Editorial Committee in policy matters when needed. Senior specialists from Saudi Arabia, as well as professionals from foreign countries are members of the Board.

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

The Journal cover

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