Author and Manuscript guidelines

About the journal

International journal of Preventative and Evidence Based Medicine is a peer-reviewed international journal published quarterly. The journal allows free access (Open Access) to its contents and permits authors to self-archive the final accepted version of the articles. The journal's full text is available online 

Scope of the journal 

The International journal of Preventative and Evidence Based Medicine publishes articles of authors from India and abroad with special emphasis on original research findings that are relevant for developing country perspectives including India. The journal considers publication of articles as original article/ review article / brief research article /commentary/ letters to editor/ case series reports, etc. The journal publishes materials focusing on primary health care, epidemiology, biostatistics, health care delivery systems, public health administration, health economics, health promotion, medical sociology, anthropology, family medicine etc. 

The Editorial Process

A manuscript will be reviewed for possible publication with the understanding that it is being submitted to International journal of Preventative and Evidence Based Medicine alone at that point in time and has not been simultaneously submitted /published anywhere / already accepted for publication elsewhere. Among the authors, one has to be identified as corresponding author and would correspond with the editors of the journal for all matters related to the manuscript. All manuscripts received will be duly acknowledged through mail. On submission, editors will review all the submitted manuscripts for suitability for formal review. Manuscripts with insufficient originality, serious technical or scientific flaws, lack of novelty and lack of public health relevance or not conforming to the journal’s norms will be rejected before proceeding for formal peer-review.

Manuscripts found suitable for formal review will be sent to two or more expert reviewers. The journal follows a double-blind review process, wherein the reviewers and the authors are unaware of each other's identity. Based on the reviewers’ comments, the editorial team will take the final decision on the acceptance or rejection of the manuscript. The comments and suggestions received from the reviewers will be conveyed through email to the corresponding author. If the manuscript requires revision, the author will be requested to provide a point by point response to the reviewers' comments and submit a revised version of the manuscript. Manuscripts accepted for publication will be copy edited for format, grammar, punctuation and print style. Final page proofs will be sent to the corresponding author for approval. The corresponding author is expected to return the corrected proofs within five days. The whole process of submission of the manuscript to final decision, sending and receiving proofs will be through the online portal of the website and it is expected to be complete within 6-8 weeks.

Authorship Criteria

The journal follows ICMJE (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors) guidelines for authorship. The ICMJE recommends that authorship be based on the following 4 criteria: 

1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND 

2. Drafting the work or reviewing it critically for important intellectual content; AND 

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

4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. 

The authors should meet all the four criteria for authorship and those who do not meet all the four criteria can be acknowledged. Authors should provide a description of contributions made by each of them towards the manuscript.  Once submitted the order of authorship cannot be changed without written consent of all the contributors. 

Types of manuscripts:

1. Original Research Article

The length of the article should preferably be 3000 words (excluding Abstract and References). Original research articles should include a structured abstract (maximum 250 words) under four subheadings: (i) Background (ii) Materials & Methods, (iii) Results and (iv) Conclusions followed by 6-8 keywords to be arranged alphabetically. The main article should include the following sections in order: Introduction, Materials & Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, Acknowledgment (if any), Disclosure of Conflicts of Interest, and References. There should be not more than 6 tables/ figures. The permission from Ethics Committee/ Institutional Review Board (IRB) is mandatory for all studies on human subjects and animals and this should be mentioned in the Materials & Methods section. Registration of clinical trials is mandatory and the registration number/CTR number should be mentioned in the manuscript. 

2. Reviews 

Narrative review articles written by scientist(s) or expert(s) working in the particular area and who have published quality original research will be considered. Continuing Medical Education / Review articles could be 2500 words (excluding Abstract and References) with not more than 100 references and a structured abstract of about 250 words under four subheadings: (i) Background (ii) Materials & Methods, (iii) Results, and (iv) Conclusions, followed by 6-8 keywords. There should be not more than 3 Tables/ Figures. Copyright permission should be obtained from the copyright holder in advance, if a published Table/Figure is reproduced in a part or whole.

3. Systematic Reviews (Including Meta-analysis)

This includes critical appraisal of different studies on important topics of clinical or public health significance to obtain an unbiased quantitative estimate of the overall effect of an intervention or a variable for a defined outcome. The focus of reviews could be on etiology, diagnosis, prognosis, therapy, prevention etc. Reviews should include a structured abstract under four subheadings: (i) Background (ii) Materials and Methods, (iii) Results and (iv) Conclusions. Systematic reviews could be 2500-3000 words with minimum number of Tables/Figures. 

4. Perspectives/ View point 

These are primarily opinion pieces written by senior scientists, public health experts and policy makers. A structured abstract not more than 200 words is suggested. Main text should be restricted to 2000 words excluding abstract and references. There should be not more than 2 tables/ figures. Except for commissioned pieces, all the submissions will be published after peer review.

5.  Short Communication Paper/ Letter to Editor

These would be about 1000-1500 words and contain a structured abstract (not more than 100 words) under four subheadings: (i) Background (ii) Materials & Methods, (iii) Results, and (iv) Conclusions with a combined Results & Discussion section.&nbspShort Communication may focus on a particular aspect of a problem or a new finding that is expected to have a significant impact. A Letter to Editor may contain a Table/ Figure. 

MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION AND SUBMISSION

All manuscripts must be submitted on-line through the journal website. First time users have to register at the journal site. Registration is free but mandatory. Registered authors will be provided a user ID and password and they can keep track of their articles after logging into the site using their user ID and password. In case of queries related to submission, the corresponding author can contact the editor through the email address mentioned in the website. The journal adheres to the recommendations of International Committee of Medical Journal Editors for manuscript preparation. Authors can refer to the guidelines before submission of the manuscript (http://www.icmje.org). All manuscripts should mention how the human and animal ethical aspects of the study were addressed and whether informed consent was obtained from participants. Experiments on human subjects should indicate whether the interventions or procedures followed were in accordance with Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000 (http://www.wma.net ).

Manuscripts submitted for publication to the International Journal of Preventative and Evidence Based Medicine should include the following: (1) Title Page file; (2) An Article file; (3) Tables & Figures; (4) Scanned copy of ethical clearance certificate; (5) Copyright transfer agreement. Details are given below.

  1. Title Page/First Page File/covering letter:

This file should provide

a.      The type of manuscript (original article/ brief research article/ case series report/ review article/ Letter to editor etc.), title of the manuscript, running title, names of all authors/ contributors (with their highest academic degrees, designation & affiliations, mobile number and e-mail address) and name(s) of department(s) and/ or institution(s) where the work should be credited. Use text/rtf/doc files. Do not zip the files.

b.      The total number of pages, total number of photographs needs to be mentioned. Word counts should be mentioned separately for the abstract and for the text (excluding abstract).

c.      Acknowledgement, if any has to be stated in this file. One or more statements should specify 1) contributions that need acknowledging but do not justify for authorship, such as general support by a departmental chairperson/Head; 2) Acknowledgments of technical help; and 3) acknowledgments of financial and material support (should specify the nature of the support). 

d. Source(s) of support in the form of grants/equipment/drugs or all of these has to be mentioned,   Registration number to be mentioned in case of clinical trials

e.      A full statement to the editor about all previous submissions and previous reports that might be regarded as redundant publication of the same or very similar work. Any such work should be referred to specifically and referenced in the new paper. Copies of such material should be included with the submitted paper to help the editor to address the situation. Statement of financial or other relationships and activities that might lead to conflicts of interest need to be stated. 

 The contributors' / copyright transfer form (template provided below) has to be submitted in original with the signatures of all the contributors. The form can be downloaded here

2.  Article file

Title:

The title of the article should be mentioned. A short running title not exceeding six words must also be provided.

Abstract
 A structured abstract not exceeding 250 words for original article/ reviews / systematic reviews and 200 words for short communication/ Letter to Editor/ Perspectives/ View Point is recommended. It should be structured under the following headings: Background, Materials and Methods, Results, Conclusions, and 6-8 keywords (arranged alphabetically). In case of trials,&nbspClinical trial registration number should be mentioned at the end of the abstract. If the data has been deposited in a public repository and/or are being used in a secondary analysis, authors should state the unique, persistent data set identifier; repository name; and number at the end of the abstract

Text
 It must be concise and should follow the IMRAD format: Background, Materials and Methods, Result, Discussion and Conclusion. Tables and Figures should be on a separate page and should be given at the end of the manuscript after the references. Details are given below

Background / Introduction

Background of the study can state the nature of the problem studied and its significance. Specific research objectives, or hypothesis tested by the study or observation has to be mentioned. Cite only directly pertinent references, do not include data or conclusions from the work being reported.

Materials & Methods: Methods section should provide clarity about how the study was done in a particular way. Objectives of the study have to be stated clearly.  The procedures adopted should be clearly stated to enable others to reproduce the results, if necessary. Methods section should include a statement that the research was approved by an independent local, regional or national review body (e.g., institute ethics committee, institutional review board). The nomenclature, the source of material and equipment used with the manufacturer's details in parenthesis should be clearly stated. New methods may be given a detailed description with their limitations. Experiments on human subjects or animals should clearly mention whether the procedures followed are in accordance with the ethical standards recommended by the national bodies or organizations of the particular country. ICMR's Ethical guidelines for biomedical and health research on human participants (2017) should be adhered for research conducted in India on human subjects. For experiments on laboratory animals, the ICMR's guidelines: Use of animals in scientific research (May 2006)/INSA's guidelines for care and use of animals in scientific research (2000) or guidelines of the Committee for the Purpose of Control and Supervision of Experiments on Animals (CPCSEA) should be followed. Information regarding the care and use of laboratory animals, source of animals, strain, age, sex, housing and nutrition, etc has to be clearly stated. If needed, appropriate certification has to be provided at the time of submission of the manuscripts. The drugs and chemicals used should be clearly identified, including generic name(s), dosage(s), and route(s) of administration.

i. Selection and Description of Participants

Authors are instructed to clearly describe the methods of selection of observational or experimental participants (for example: healthy individuals or patients, including controls), eligibility criteria, exclusion criteria and a detailed description of the source population.

ii. Study design: Selection of the observational or experimental participants (patients or laboratory animals, including controls, whether randomly or consecutively) and basis of sample size calculation should be mentioned clearly, including eligibility and exclusion criteria and a description of the source population. 

iii. Statistical analysis: Authors are instructed to describe the statistical methods with adequate details to enable the readers with access to the original data to judge its appropriateness for the study and to verify the reported outcomes or results. Quantify the findings and present them with appropriate indicators of measurement error or uncertainty (For example: stating confidence intervals). Effect size and precision of estimates can be stated rather than relying only on P values. Define statistical terms, abbreviations, and symbols. Statistical software package(s) and versions used have to be specified. 

Results

Results have to be presented in a logical sequence in the text. Emphasize or summarize only the most important observations in the tables or figures, do not repeat all the data in the tables or figures in the text. Data on the entire primary and secondary outcomes has to be stated. Supplementary materials and technical details can be placed in an appendix, where they will be accessible but will not interrupt the flow of the text, or else they can be published solely in the electronic version of the journal. Numeric results have to state as not only as derivatives (e.g., percentages) but also as the absolute numbers from which the derivatives were obtained. Graphs can be used as an alternative to tables with many entries. Avoid nontechnical uses of technical terms in statistics such as “random” (which implies a randomizing device), “normal,” “significant,”“correlations,” and “sample.”.

Authors or contributors are requested to consult the following guidelines

Sr. No.

Type of study

Source

1.

Randomized controlled trials (RCTs)

CONSORT- http://www.consort-statement.org

2.

Systematic reviews & meta-analysis

PRISMA guidelines- http://www.prisma-statement.org

3.

Observational studies in epidemiology

STROBE - http://www.strobe-statement.org/

4.

Meta-analysis of observational studies in epidemiology

MOOSE - http://statswrite.eu/pdf/MOOSE%20Statement.pdf

5.

Studies on diagnostic accuracy

STARD - http://www.stard-statement.org

* For any other type of study, authors/contributors may refer ICMJE website (www.icmje.org)

International Journal of Preventative and Evidence Based Medicine favors registration of clinical trials and is a signatory to the Statement on publishing clinical trials in Indian biomedical journals. Clinical trials should have been registered with a clinical trial registry that allows free online access to public. Registration in the following registers are acceptable:https://ctri.nic.in/Clinicaltrials/login.php; http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/; http://isrctn.org/; and http://www.umin.ac.jp/ctr. This is applicable to clinical trials that have begun enrollment of subjects in or after June 2008. Articles on randomized clinical trials should provide information on all major study elements such as protocol, methods of randomization, concealment of allocation to treatment groups, method of masking (blinding) etc. A statement regarding the approval of study protocol by the institutional/local ethics committee and written consent from the participants is necessary

Measurements of length, height, weight, and volume should be reported in metric units (meter, kilogram, or liter) or their decimal multiples. Temperatures should be in degrees Celsius. Blood pressures should be in millimeters of mercury. Report the laboratory information in both local and International System of Units (SI).  Drug concentrations can be reported in either SI or mass units, but the alternative should be provided in parentheses where appropriate.

Discussion

Discussion should briefly summarize the main findings and mention the explanations for the findings. Emphasize the new and important aspects of the study and state the findings in the context of the relevant evidence.  Limitations of the study can be stated and implications of the findings for future research and for clinical practice or policy can be mentioned. Association of variables, such as sex and/or gender, on the findings can be discussed. 

Conclusions

Conclusions can be linked with the goals of the study but avoid unqualified statements and conclusions that are not adequately supported by the data. New hypotheses can be stated when warranted, but they have to be labeled clearly.

Declarations:

Acknowledgment: This should be placed as the last element of the text before references. Written permissions of persons/agencies acknowledged should be provided.

Disclosure of Conflicts of Interest or Competing Interests

Authors must disclose the conflicts of interest (if any) they may have with the publication of the manuscript or an institution or product that is mentioned in the manuscript and/or is important to the outcome of the study. 

References

References have to be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text and cite within parentheses in the text as superscripts in square brackets. References in text, tables, and legends should be identified by Arabic numerals in parentheses. References cited only in tables or figures have to be numbered in accordance with the sequence established by the first identification in the text of the particular table or figure. Standards summarized in the NLM's Sample References (www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html) webpage and detailed in the NLM's Citing Medicine, 2nd edition (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK7256/) has to be followed for references.

References should include; the names and initials of all authors up to six (if more than 6, only the first 6 are mentioned followed by et al.); the title of the article (Titles of the journals should be abbreviated according to the style used for MEDLINE (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/journals) year of publication; volume number; first and last page numbers. References of books should include the names and initials of the authors, title of the book, place of publication, publisher, and year. For website references, provide the complete URL of the website, followed by the date of accession of the website. Such references have to cite as – the author's name, the title of the article, the website address and the date of accession. Papers accepted but not yet published should be mentioned in the references followed by 'in press'. 

Tables

Tables must be self-explanatory, consecutively numbered with Arabic numerals in the order of their first citation in the text and each table should have a title.  Each table should be typed in double space and cited in the text. The count of tables/ figures should be restricted to 6 for Original articles, 3 for Review article, 2 for Perspective/View points and 1 for Short communication/ Letter to Editor. There should be minimum number of tables/figures in the Systematic Reviews. The extra table/figure may be uploaded as a supplementary file which would be available only online (Not in the print version). Explanatory matter can be provided in footnotes, not in the heading. Symbols can be used to explain information if needed. Symbols can be alphabet letter or symbols like *, †, ‡, §). Statistical measurement variations such as SD and SE should be identified. Data from another published or unpublished source needs prior permission and acknowledgement.  

Illustration/ Figures

Illustration/ Figures should be of the highest quality, glossy black and white photographs, cited with Arabic numerals. Figures should be in JPEG or TIFF format (minimum size 300 dpi not more than 1 MB) with appropriate title and explanation of symbols in the legends for illustrations. Different parts of the figure should be labeled as A, B, C,...etc. on top left corner within a multi-panel figure. Figures from other published material needs acknowledgement and copyright material along with the written permission of the copyright holder should be submitted.

Abbreviation
 The abbreviations should be used without a full stop in the text, tables and illustrations. New abbreviations should be defined by the author when used first in the text.

Checklist for submission:

Covering letter

  • Signed by all contributors
  • Details of Previous publication / presentations 
  • Details of Source of funding 
  • Conflicts of interest disclosed

Authors 

  • Last name and given name provided along with Middle name initials (where applicable)
  • Author for correspondence, with e-mail address and mobile number provided
  • Number of contributors restricted as per the instructions
  • Identity not revealed in paper except title page (e.g. name of the institute in Methods, citing previous study as 'our study', names on figure labels, name of institute in photographs, etc.)

Presentation and format

  • Double spacing
  • Margins 2.5 cm from all four sides
  • Page numbers included at bottom
  • Title page contains all the desired information
  • Running title provided 
  • Abstract page contains the full title of the manuscript
  • Abstract provided (unstructured summary of 250 words for review articles, structured abstract of about 250 words for original articles, unstructured summary of about 150 words for  brief research article and case series report )
  • Key words provided (six or more)
  • Introduction of 75-100 words
  • Headings in title case (not ALL CAPITALS)
  • The references cited in the text should be after punctuation marks, in superscript .
  • References according to the journal's instructions, punctuation marks checked
  • Send the article file without 'Track Changes'

Language and grammar

  • Uniformly American English
  • Write the full term for each abbreviation at its first use in the title, abstract, keywords and text separately unless it is a standard unit of measure. Numerals from 1 to 10 spelt out
  • Numerals at the beginning of the sentence spelt out
  • Check the manuscript for spelling, grammar and punctuation errors
  • If a brand name is cited, supply the manufacturer's name and address (city and state/country).
  • Species names should be in italics

Tables and figures

  • No repetition of data in tables and graphs and in text
  • Actual numbers from which graphs drawn, provided
  • Figures necessary and of good quality (colour)
  • Table and figure numbers in Arabic letters (not Roman)
  • Labels pasted on back of the photographs (no names written)
  • Figure legends provided (not more than 40 words)
  • Patients' privacy maintained (if not permission taken)
  • Credit note for borrowed figures/tables provided
  • Write the full term for each abbreviation used in the table as a footnote

Copyright/ contributors' form

Ethics committee clearance document