Guidance on writing original articles for the IJPHC

Submitting articles to the journal

How to contact the IJPHC

Please note these important points:

• all material submitted for publication must be submitted exclusively to the IJPHC
• PLEASE DO NOT SEND ARTICLES TO THE IJPHC BY POST. Please send all submissions electronically to our online editorial office at www.ijphc.org except letters to the editor, which should be sent to bmj.com as rapid responses to articles we have published. Please see Rapid response requirements and Tip: what are rapid responses?
• material accepted for publication will be edited
• we produce abridged versions of original research papers in the printed IJPHC while publishing their full versions on ijphc.org
• proofs are sent to authors of all articles except letters, obituaries, drug points, medicine and the media, fillers, and career focus
• reprints are available: a scale of charges is included with the proofs
• we have an ongoing programme of editorial research www.ijphc.org/research, for example we have conducted randomised controlled trials on open peer review and on peer review training. If you do not want your paper entered into such a study please let us know by emailing papersadmin@ijphc.org as soon as possible. Your decision to participate or not will have no effect on the editorial decision regarding your submission.

Essentially, the Benchpress system at our online editorial office will convert your manuscript to a PDF for the review process. Most common word processing formats are accepted for text and tables, although the system prefers Word and PDF, and images should be submitted as GIF, TIFF, EPS, or JPEG files (for more details of unacceptable formats please go to the Benchpress site via the link above).

The Benchpress system can also accept supplemental files (for example: videos, datasets, cover art submissions) related papers, papers in press, permission letters, etc. These are files that normally do not appear with the print article (though they might accompany the final version of the paper online). Supplemental files are not converted to PDF but will be available to reviewers or editors exactly as you upload them.

Requirements for all IJPHC manuscripts

Please ensure that anything you submit to the IJPHC conforms to the uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals: Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals. International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Med Educ. 1999; 33(1):66-78 or: http://www.icmje.org/index.html

We have found that it is easiest for everyone if all the information we require (see below) is contained in your manuscript. Therefore the manuscript file that you attach should include:

• Title - All manuscripts
• Names, addresses, and positions of all authors plus email address for corresponding author - All manuscripts Copyright - All manuscripts - A statement in the manuscript that “The Corresponding Author has the right to grant on behalf of all authors and does grant on behalf of all authors, an exclusive licence (or non exclusive for government employees) on a worldwide basis to the International Medical Publishing Group, and its Licensees to permit this article (if accepted) to be published in IJPHC editions and any other IMPG products and to exploit all subsidiary rights, as set out in our licence (ijphc.org/advice/copyright.shtml).” We no longer need to see a hard copy of the signed form.
• A competing interest statement - All manuscripts- (Either a statement in the manuscript describing the interests of all authors or a declaration "All authors declare that the answer to the questions on your competing interest form ijphc.org/cgi/content/full/317/7154/291/DC1 are all No and therefore have nothing to declare"). We no longer need to see a hard copy of the signed form.
• Details of contributors, and the name of the guarantor - All full papers (eg not fillers or personal views) Please see Authorship and contributorship
• Signed patient consent form. Publication of any personal information about a patient in the IJPHC, for example in a case report or clinical photograph, will normally require the signed consent of the patient. Please see Patient confidentiality and consent to publication and, for our policy on images, Style book basics and please download and print the IJPHC's consent form to give to the patient.
• Details of ethics approval (or a statement that it was not required) - All research studies
• Details of funding - All research studies
• Statement of the independence of researchers from funders - All research studies
• If you are submitting a randomised controlled trial please send with your manuscript the following:
• a checklist and flowchart in accordance with the CONSORT guidelines http://www.consort-statement.org Please submit the checklist as a supplementary file and the flowchart in the manuscript.
• the trial protocol, submitted as a supplementary file. We do not intend to publish this but we do need it to appraise and peer review your paper. Please see Trial protocols at the IJPHC
• the registration number of the trial and the name of the trial registry. Please add these to the last line of your paper’s structured abstract. Trials that begin enrolment of patients after 1 July 2005 must register in a public trials registry at or before the onset of enrolment to be considered for publication in the IJPHC. Trials that began patient enrolment on or before 1 July 2005 must register before 13 September 2005 to be considered for publication. Please see Compulsory registration of clinical trials and Next steps in trial registration. The IJPHC’s criteria for a suitable public trial registry are: free to access, searchable, and identifies trials with a unique number; registration is free or has minimal cost; registered information is validated; registered entry includes details to identify the trial and investigator and includes the status of the trial; and the research question, methodology, intervention, funding, and sponsorship must all be disclosed.
• If you are submitting a systematic review please follow the QUOROM guidelines http://www.consort-statement.org/Statement/revisedstatement.htm and David Moher et al for the QUOROM Group. Lancet 1999;354:1896-900.
• If you are submitting a health economics paper please follow our Health Economics Checklist and read about our current policy: New IJPHC policy on economic evaluations
• If you are submitting a study of diagnostic accuracy please follow the STARD guidelines http://www.consort-statement.org/Initiatives/newstard.htm
• If you are submitting a clinical guidelines paper we would encourage you follow the GRADE system for grading evidence, but will not insist on this. Please see Grading quality of evidence and strength of recommendations
• If any of this information is missing we will require it before we can send your paper for external review.

Online first publication

To minimise publication times and ensure that important data reach readers and the public as quickly as possible we now post online research articles as soon as they are ready, before print publication (see the Online First section on Ijphc.org). This applies mainly to research articles but may also apply to articles in other sections, such as editorials, education and debate, etc. You will be told by the technical editor handling your paper if this will happen to your paper.

Online First articles are edited in the normal way. Once you have approved the proof we will post the article as a PDF on Ijphc.org

If we decide to press release your article we will issue the press release at the time of online publication. The article (or, if it is to be abridged using our ELPS electronic long, paper short process, the short version) will then also appear in an issue of the print journal a few weeks later.

An Online First article is not a “pre-print”. It represents the full publication of that article. At the time of posting the bibliographic information is forwarded to PubMed and other indexing agencies, so the article can be searched for and found on bibliographical databases and can be cited as published (the citation format appears at the top of the online article).

Because an Online First article is formally published, we handle any mistakes in them as proper corrections. If an error is spotted before print publication it will be corrected in the print version and a corrected online version will be posted at the same time as the print version is published. Only in exceptional circumstances will we publish a corrected version of an article between online and print publication.

Authorship and Contributorship

Contributorship

Please note the way that we list the names of contributors to papers published in the IJPHC. We believe that the definition of authorship, produced by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (or Vancouver Group, see www.icmje.org), has some serious flaws. The current definition of authorship does not make clear who has contributed what to the published study, nor does it clarify who is responsible for the overall content. It also excludes those whose sole but often large contribution has been to collect data. We now list contributors in two ways. Firstly, we publish a list of authors' names at the beginning of the paper and, secondly, we list contributors (some of whom may not be included as authors) at the end of the paper, giving details of who did what in planning, conducting, and reporting the work. One or more of these contributors are listed as guarantors of the paper. The guarantor accepts full responsibility for the work and/or the conduct of the study, had access to the data, and controlled the decision to publish. See ijphc.org/cgi/content

Contributorship and guarantorship are concepts that were applied first to original research papers, and are sometimes hard to define for other articles. Each contributorship statement should make clear who has contributed what to the planning, conduct, and reporting of the work described in the article, and should identify one, or occasionally more, contributor(s) as being responsible for the overall content as guarantor(s). For IJPHC articles that do not report original research such as editorials, clinical reviews, and education and debate please state who had the idea for the article, who performed the literature search, who wrote the article, and who is the guarantor (the contributor who accepts full responsibility for the finished article, had access to any data, and controlled the decision to publish). For non-research articles that include case reports such as lessons of the week, drug points, and interactive case reports, please also state who identified and/or managed the case(s). Researchers must determine among themselves the precise nature of each person's contribution, and we encourage open discussion among all participants. See Authorship is dying; long live contributorship

Authorship

The uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to medical journals state that authorship credit should be based only on substantial contribution to:

• conception and design, or analysis and interpretation of data
• drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content
• and final approval of the version to be published.

All these conditions must all be met. Participation solely in the acquisition of funding or the collection of data does not justify authorship. We want authors to assure us that all authors included on a paper fulfil the criteria of authorship. In addition we want assurance that there is no one else who fulfils the criteria but has not been included as an author. See Authorship collection

lteration to authorship or contributorship

Any change in authors and/or contributors after initial submission must be approved by all authors. This applies to additions, deletions, change of order to the authors, or contributions being attributed differently. Any alterations must be explained to the editor. The editor may contact any of the authors and/or contributors to ascertain whether they have agreed to any alteration.

Competing interests statements

A competing interest exists when professional judgment concerning a primary interest (such as patients' welfare or the validity of research) may be influenced by a secondary interest (such as financial gain or personal rivalry). It may arise for the authors of a IJPHC article when they have a financial interest that may influence, probably without their knowing, their interpretation of their results or those of others.

We believe that, to make the best decision on how to deal with a paper, we should know about any such competing interest that authors may have. We are not aiming to eradicate competing interests; they are almost inevitable. We will not reject papers simply because you have a competing interest, but we will make a declaration on whether or not you have competing interests.

We used to ask authors about any competing interests, but we have decided to restrict our request to financial interests. This is largely a tactical move. We hope that it will increase the number of authors who disclose competing interests. Our experience, supported by some research data, was that authors often did not disclose them.

For all manuscripts please provide either a statement describing the interests of all authors or a declaration "All authors declare that the answer to the questions on your competing interest form ijphc.org/cgi/content/full/317/7154/291/DC1 are all No and therefore have nothing to declare").

We also ask reviewers to provide statements of competing interests, and we use these when assessing the value of peer review reports.

Role of the funder in the research process

All sources of funding should be declared under the heading "Funding" at the end of the text. Authors must describe the role of the study sponsor(s), if any, in study design; in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the paper for publication. If the authors’ work was independent of the funders (the funding source had no involvement), the authors should so state.

Fast track submissions

Fast track submission must be made through our online editorial office Benchpress. Our fast track procedure is for papers of exceptional clinical importance and urgency or where there is a public policy reason for urgent publication.

1. Please ensure that your paper matches the IJPHC’s format for the type of paper and contains the information required in all IJPHC manuscripts.
2. Please go to our online editorial office and fill out the necessary information on authors, addresses, possible reviewers, and competing interests and upload your manuscript file.
3. Please make clear in your covering letter why you are seeking fast track publication.
4. When you submit your paper please suggest three or four people who might be suitable reviewers for your paper and give their contact details (including email).
5. We will tell you by the end of the next working day whether we can offer fast track assessment. If we decide not to we may offer to consider your paper in the normal way.
6. If we do fast track your paper we will send it to reviewers and reserve a place for it at the next editorial meeting, at which we make our final decisions about publication. You will have a reply within 24 hours of that meeting.
7. In return we will need the revised manuscript within 48 hours of your receiving our decision.
8. Once the final paper has been edited we will need proofs returned within 24 hours.
9. If the paper is accepted we will aim to publish it within four weeks of its registration. Exceptions include the situation where a theme issue is planned for a particular date, when the paper arrives over a public holiday, you when you want longer than 48 hours to revise the manuscript, or as otherwise negotiated.

Submitting an appeal

If you believe that we have rejected your manuscript wrongly, perhaps because we have misunderstood its scientific content, please submit an appeal letter. This should be as detailed as possible. If we have provided comments from external peer review and/or from a full editorial committee please respond to these, point-by-point, in your appeal letter. We may invite you to submit a revised paper if we wish to consider your appeal further, and it will be easier for us to decide what to do if you send a very detailed letter.

Appeals clarifying and revising specific parts of the manuscript, for instance the analysis of original data, tend to succeed much more often than appeals against essentially editorial decisions. If the editors and/or the full editorial committee have decided that your paper is not sufficiently interesting or important for IJPHC readers, there may be no point in trying to appeal.

Lastly, we can consider only one appeal per manuscript. Our experience is that prolonged negotiations over rejected papers are usually unsatisfactory for both authors and editors.

Previous publication and electronic preprints (eprints)

The IJPHC does not want to publish material that has already appeared elsewhere [Duplicate publication]. But we do accept some papers that have been published as abstracts or have been partially reported by the media at scientific meetings, and some that have already appeared in foreign language journals.

We have now decided that previous publication in electronic form may be acceptable, too. Before submitting material for publication authors often ask colleagues and peers for comments on the completed work. These unpublished articles are known as preprints. Increasingly, authors are conducting this informal peer review using electronic preprints (eprints), often by posting the articles on websites. See What is publication? and Moving beyond journals: the future arrives with a crash In all these cases we expect authors to tell us about previous publication and to supply us with copies of such previous versions.

Then we can assess whether publication in the IJPHC will add usefully to the medical literature, or whether it will just add redundant material.

Netprints

Another way to expose original research articles to fellow researchers is to post them on a dedicated website before, during, or after peer review by other agencies. The IMPG has such a website at clinmed.netprints.org for articles on clinical medicine and health. This site will usually post articles within 24-48 hours of receipt. Articles will be screened to ensure that they report original research, and that they don't breach patient confidentiality or libel anyone, and that informed consent has been obtained from all participants (research subjects). The site gives full directions on how to post articles; authors do not need any special web skills. After posting, authors may update their articles as often as they like; all versions will be accessible from the netprint server.

We hope that authors submitting a new article to the IJPHC will also post it on the server. That way, anyone interested in new work will be able to read it in full, free, and immediately - whether or not the IJPHC eventually decides to publish the article. Posting a netprint is entirely voluntary and is completely separate from submission to the IJPHC. We encourage, but don't require authors to use the netprint server.

See - Netprints: the next phase in the evolution of biomedical publishing

The appearance of an article on does not imply approval of its assumptions, methods, or conclusions. Each netprint will be prefaced by this disclaimer: articles appearing on this site have not yet been accepted for publication by a peer reviewed journal. They are presented here mainly for the benefit of fellow researchers. Casual readers should not act on their findings, and journalists should be wary of reporting them.

Redundant publication

To save readers and researchers from being overwhelmed by redundant material we do not want to publish papers that overlap substantially with papers published elsewhere. We want to make up our own minds on the degree of overlap. Whenever a paper submitted to the IJPHC overlaps by more than 10% with previously published work, or work submitted elsewhere, we expect authors to send us copies of those papers.

Duplicate publication

Duplicate publication is the publication of the same paper or substantially similar papers in more than one journal. Authors must explain in the submission letter any prior publication of the same or substantially similar paper, and should explain any circumstances that might lead the editor or reviews to believe that the paper may have been published elsewhere (for example, when the title of a submitted paper is the same as or similar to the title of a previously published article).

If the editor learns that a submitted paper has been published elsewhere (in either the same or substantially similar form), the editor reserves the right to consult with other editors about the content of the papers in question. Further, the editor may return the paper unreviewed, may consider no papers by any of the authors for a period of time, may announce publicly in the journal (perhaps as a simultaneous announcement with the editor of the journal that published the earlier paper) that the authors have submitted a previously published article, or may do any combination of these actions, at the editor’s discretion.

If the paper is accepted and published before the duplication is discovered, the editor will announce the duplication in the journal or have the authors write a letter acknowledging the duplicate publication, and the editor will notify the authors’ employers, at the editor’s discretion. What we do if we suspect research or professional misconduct

Simultaneous submission of manuscripts

Authors may not send the same manuscript to more that one journal at the same time. If the editor learns of possible simultaneous submission, the editor reserves the right to consult with the other editor(s) who have received the paper. Further the editor may return the paper without review, or may reject it without regard to the reviews, or make this decision in discussion with the other editor(s) involved, and may decide to consider no papers from the author from the authors for a period of time, and may also write to the authors employers, or may do any combination of these actions, at the editor’s discretion. What we do if we suspect research or professional misconduct

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. The intent and effect of plagiarism is to mislead the reader as to the contributions or the plagiariser. This applies whether the ideas or words are taken from abstracts, research grant applications, ethics committee applications, or unpublished or published manuscripts in any publication format (print or electronic).

Plagiarism is serious scientific misconduct. What we do if we suspect research or professional misconduct

Longer articles on web, shorter ones on paper

If we accept your original research paper for publication in the IJPHC we will publish it in full on bmj.com with a shorter version in the printed journal. using this process, which we call ELPS (electronic long, paper short), we aim to please both authors and readers. We believe that a well written short version (say 1000-1500 words) in the printed journal can encourage casual readers to read something they might otherwise miss, while a longer version on bmj.com allows serious readers enough detail. See: Pleasing both authors and readers Making research papers in the IJPHC more accessible

When we offer to publish an article using ELPS we ask authors to produce just one version, the longer one. This should be the full paper with a structured abstract and all the necessary scientific detail, probably with several tables. We edit it and publish it on Ijphc.org with a much shorter abridged version prepared by IJPHC editors; authors receive proofs of both before publication. Only the shorter version appears in the printed IJPHC, with an ELPS logo that alerts readers to the presence of more on Ijphc.org

The ELPS concept does not mean that authors can feel free to submit very long papers or lengthen them at the stage of revision after peer review. Our ideal limit for an original research paper is still 2000 words, because we know that to be a readable and effective length. Some papers, for example systematic reviews, may warrant up to 3000 words. But very long articles are nearly always too longwinded for editors, peer reviews and, most importantly, readers. So please continue to make every word count, and please try to keep within any word limits that we set.

Web extras

We may use Ijphc.org to add value to non-research articles (for example editorials and articles for the clinical review and education and debate sections) by publishing additional electronic material, including tables, boxes, and appendices. This material is not edited by the IJPHC, and will be marked as “posted as supplied by author”. Once web extras have been posted on bmj.com they cannot be changed.

We also publish on ijphc.org from time to time unedited background papers that relate to papers we are publishing. These do not appear in the paper journal.

Articles with web extras are published in the printed IJPHC with a logo P+ to alert readers that they will find additional material on Ijphc.org.

Copyright

Since January 2000 (ijphc.org/cgi/content/full/320/7226/6) the International Medical Publishing Group (“IMPG”) has not asked authors of journal articles to assign us their copyright. Authors (or their employers) retain their copyright in the article; all we require is an exclusive licence (except for government employees who cannot grant this, thus non-exclusive) that allows us to publish the article in the IJPHC (including any derivative products) and any other International Medical Publishing Group products (such as the IJPHC), and allows us to sub-licence such rights and exploit all subsidiary rights.

We ask the corresponding author to grant this exclusive licence (or non exclusive for government employees) on behalf of all authors by reading our licence ijphc.org/advice/copyright.shtml and inserting in the manuscript on submission the following statement: “The Corresponding Author has the right to grant on behalf of all authors and does grant on behalf of all authors, an exclusive licence (or non exclusive for government employees) on a worldwide basis to the International Medical Publishing Group, and its Licensees to permit this article (if accepted) to be published in IJPHC editions and any other IMPG products and to exploit all subsidiary rights, as set out in our licence (ijphc.org/copyright.shtml).”

This licence allows authors to use their own articles for their own “non commercial” purposes without seeking permission from us. Only if the use is commercial do we need to know about it. In addition, we will pay authors a royalty on certain commercial uses that we negotiate.

Thus authors may use their own articles for the following non commercial the purposes without asking our permission (and subject only to acknowledging first publication in the IJPHC and giving a full reference or web link, as appropriate).

1. Posting a pdf of their own article on their own personal or institutional website for which no charge for access is made.
2. Making a reasonable number of copies for personal or non commercial professional use. This includes the contributor’s own teaching purposes.
3. Republishing part or all of the article in a book or other publication edited by the author (except for multiple contributions in the same book or publication, for which permission needs to be sought email IJPHC permissions)
4. Using individual figures or tables or extracts of text (up to 250 words) in other publications published by a third party.
5. Using the article in a course pack or compilation (whether paper or electronic) in the authors’ institution. This does not apply if a commercial charge is made for the compilation or training programme.

On orders that we receive up to five years after publication for a single article reprint or translation sale that exceed £1500 in value, we will pay authors a royalty of 10% of net receipts less sales any commission, which will be paid to the Corresponding Author for distribution as agreed between the authors.

Corrections

We try hard not to make mistakes, but errors—both by editors and authors—do creep into the journal. We publish corrections when necessary, and, to ensure that corrections are handled consistently, one technical editor deals with them all.

We correct even minor mistakes, and we set no time limit for notifying errors or publishing corrections. We always try to contact the author of the original article unless the error is very obvious, and we publish all corrections as soon as we can.

If your article is published on Ijphc.org as an Online First (where we publish the article quickly online and subsequently in print), and you discover a mistake between online and print publication we will normally correct this by making the article correct in the printed version and by reposting a new version of the article at the time of print publication. Only in exceptional circumstances will we publish a corrected version of an article between online and print publication.

In the print journal we publish corrections either singly in the relevant section or, more usually, grouped together in a box of "Corrections and clarifications." On Ijphc.org we indicate in red that an article has a correction and provide a direct link to it.

If you want further advice about our policy or would like to notify us about the need for a specific correction please email. Please give as much detail as possible about errors, including any views on how they might have arisen.

Basics of IJPHC house style

The Essentials

Please write in a clear, direct, and active style.

The IJPHC is an international journal, and many readers do not have English as their first language.

Our preferred dictionaries are

• Chambers 21st Century Dictionary for general usage
• Dorlands for medical terms.

Punctuation

No full stops in initials or abbreviations.

Minimal commas, but use commas before the "and" and "or" in lists: The bishops of Durham, Canterbury, Bath and Wells, and York were invited. Use commas on both sides of parenthetical clauses or phrases, and with commenting clauses.

Know the difference between defining clauses (no comma) and commenting clauses (commas needed):

Medical staff who often work overtime are likely to suffer from stress.
Medical staff, who often work overtime, are likely to suffer from stress.
Use commas before "and," "or," "but" in two-sentence sentences (when the coordinate conjunction joins two main clauses):
Half received drug treatment, but their symptoms did not resolve more quickly.
We would make an omelette, or you could go and get a takeaway.
Note that when a comma is used, both main clauses must have a subject:
The patients stopped smoking, and they felt better for it.
The patients stopped smoking and felt better for it.
Minimal hyphenation - use hyphens only for words with non-, -like, -type, and for adjectival phrases that include a preposition (one-off event, run-in trial). Not using hyphens will help you to avoid noun clusters (see below).

Quotation marks - please use double, not single, inverted commas for reported speech. Full stops and commas go inside quotation marks: She said, "We will." No exclamation marks, except in quotes from other sources.

Reference numbers go after commas and full stops, before semicolons and colons.

Minimal capitalisation. Use capitals only for names and proper nouns. Don't capitalise names of studies.

Grammar

Write in the active and use the first person where necessary.

Try to avoid long sentences that have several embedded clauses.

Sex: avoid "he" as a general pronoun. Make the nouns (and pronouns) plural, then use "they"; if that's not possible, use "he or she".

Nouns and verbs should agree:

The data are; None is...
Organisations and groups of people take singular verbs:
The government is; The team has researched...
Avoid noun clusters:
"Patient in coronary care unit" rather than "coronary care unit patient."
Watch out for "danglers" (unattached participles and misrelated clauses):
Joining the service in 1933, his first post was... (the post didn't join the service)
Joining the service in 1933, he was first posted to... (this is correct)

Spelling

English, not American:

• aetiology
• oestradiol
• anaemia
• haemorrhage
• practice (noun)
• practise (verb)
• Foetus and fetus are both acceptable in English: the IJPHC uses fetus.

Use s-spellings:

• minimise
• organisation
• capitalisation

Use English spellings for place names: Lyons, not Lyon; see Whitaker's Almanac or Times Gazeteer.

We allow minimum use of abbreviations because they're hard to read and often the same abbreviation means different things in different specialities and contexts.

Technical terms

Drugs should be referred to by their approved non-proprietary names, and the source of any new or experimental preparations should be given.

Scientific measurements should be given in SI units, except for blood pressure which should be expressed in mm Hg.

Numbers under 10 are spelt out, except for measurements with a unit (8mmol/l) or age (6 weeks old), or when in a list with other numbers (14 dogs, 12 cats, 9 gerbils).

Raw numbers should be given alongside percentages, and as supporting data for p values.

Proof corrections

These should be kept to a minimum and should be clear and consistent. If you need to justify corrections to the proofs, please do so in a covering letter, not on the proof.

References

These should be numbered in the order in which they appear in the text. At the end of the article the full list of references should follow the Vancouver style.

Ref: Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals. International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Med Educ. 1999; 33(1):66-78

Please give the names and initials of all authors (unless there are more than six, when only the first six should be given followed by et al).

The authors' names are followed by the title of the article; the title of the journal abbreviated according to the style of Index Medicus; the year of publication; the volume number; and the first and last page numbers.

References to books should give the names of any editors, place of publication, editor, and year. Examples:

21 Soter A, Wasserman SI, Austen KF. Cold urticaria: release into the circulation of histamine and eosinophil chemotactic factor of anaphylaxis during cold challenge. N Engl J Med 1976;294:687-90

22 Osler AG. Complement: mechanisms and functions. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1976.

Information from manuscripts not yet in press, papers reported at meetings, or personal communications should be cited only in the text, not as a formal reference.

Authors should get permission from the source to cite personal communications.

Authors must verify references against the original documents before submitting the article

Electronic citations

You may know of other websites that will interest people reading your article. If you know the web addresses (URLs) of those sites, please include them in the relevant places in the text of your article. If we accept your article we will insert hotlinks in the electronic version so that people using bmj.com can jump directly from your article to those related sites.

Illustrations and photographs

Please try to provide informative and relevant photographs, figures, or other illustrations when you’re submitting articles to the IJPHC, especially in these sections: clinical review, short reports and work in progress, education and debate, and Public Health Review. We’re also happy to consider good pictures for letters, editorials, and original research papers although we won’t always have room for images in these sections. If you cannot provide pictures with your article, perhaps you can suggest some for our picture editor to find.

You must seek the patient’s written consent to publication in the IJPHC if there is any chance that he or she may be identified from a picture, from its legend or other accompanying text. Patients are almost always willing to give such consent. We no longer publish pictures with black bands across the eyes because bands fail to mask someone’s identity effectively.
See Using pictures in the IJPHC
Our policy on obtaining consent for publication of pictures of patients is a subset of our general policy on any confidential material that arises from the doctor-patient relationship. See Patient confidentiality and consent to publication

This policy also reflects the UK General Medical Council’s rules on publishing confidential clinical material. However, the GMC does not insist on separate permission to publish what the GMC calls the “recordings” listed below, provided that, before use, the recordings are effectively anonymised by the removal of any identifying marks (writing in the margins of an x ray, for example):

• Images taken from pathology slides
• X rays
• Laparoscopic images
• Images of internal organs
• Ultrasound images

When such an image is accompanied by text that could reveal the patient’s identity through clinical or personal detail, however, the IJPHC does need the patient’s signed consent to publication. Please use our consent form at http://ijphc.org/collections/informed_consent/draft_f.shtml for any image that does need consent to publication or, indeed, for the text of any article that might lead to identification such as a case report, paper, personal view, filler, or letter. Please print out the form, add the paper’s title and IJPHC number, ask the patient or next of kin to sign the form and then send or fax it to us or scan it and upload it to submit.ijphc.org as a supplemental file to your article. We can use an image that has been published before only if it has no copyright or if the copyright holder has given us permission for its use on ijphc.org, in the print IJPHC and in associated publications such as local editions of the IJPHC and IJPHC books. If you would like to use in a IJPHC article an illustration that has already been published elsewhere in a journal or book please ask the publishers to give permission. Most will agree as long as the IJPHC credits the original publisher, although some will charge you a reproduction fee. If an image has no copyright, please tell us the precise details of where you obtained it and who gave you permission to use it in the IJPHC. Please note that many medical illustration departments expect to be acknowledged. If images come from your colleagues you will need to seek their written permission and check whether the photographs have been published previously in other books and journals.

If you are using line drawings or tables that have been taken from or adapted from published papers, then you are responsible for getting the publisher's permission to republish or adapt them. We would then publish such an image with a legend saying something like "Adapted with permission from...[ref]" or "Reproduced with permission of the American Academy of Sciences from xxx et al[ref]". We’re happy to use works of art when appropriate but it can be difficult and expensive for us to publish: copyright clearance is often particularly slow, use may be restricted by limited licences, and some artists will not permit their work to appear on websites. Copyright in a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work (including a photograph) lasts in the UK until 70 years after the death of the author. Given the complexities of copyright clearance for such artwork, please let us do it and give us plenty of warning if you would like to include such images in your article. If you find the ideal picture on a website, we will still have to clear copyright. And, although the image may look right on your computer screen, it may not be good enough to print. Pixel strengths for screen use (72 dots per inch) and those required for good quality printing (300 dots per inch) are worlds apart. This means that we will have to find and request a high resolution version.

If you have found or produced pictures or other figures to illustrate your article please submit them to our online editorial office at http://submit.ijphc.org (the web page can not open without the password) along with your manuscript. The Benchpress system used by our online office will convert your manuscript to a PDF and will accept most common word processing formats, although it prefers Word and PDF. It cannot deal with files using OLE (Object Linking and Embedding) technology to display information or embed files. Nor can Benchpress cope with multi-page PowerPoint files (.ppt); it will only accept one slide per file.

Benchpress accepts image files in these formats: GIF, TIFF, EPS, JPEG. Image strengths should, ideally, be at least 300 dots per inch; those below 200 dots per inch may produce fuzzy images in print. Please supply image files at least 100% of the intended printed size. We are unable to enlarge images by more than 5% from the original size supplied without a corresponding loss of quality. Please provide for each image a few words of text to explain its content (the legend) and say where it came from (the credit).

Your images will be converted to PDFs and appended to your manuscript file. If your images are included within your manuscript file you do not need to upload them separately. And if your image files are in a format that our system cannot handle, please insert them into your manuscript (after the main text and reference list): this should solve the problem. When submitting figures such as graphs, scattergrams, and histograms please provide the numerical data on which they are based. We may decide that data presented in a histogram would be clearer and more useful in a table. The IJPHC redraws all technical figures and line drawings, so please supply these in a clear enough format for our artist to follow. We will not change any feature, person, or situation in an image with the intent to deceive by altering appearance or activity. Nor will we enhance or alter a clinical picture except to remove extraneous and distracting parts of the image. Journals have been cropping images in this way for decades, since long before the advent of digital photography. We do not enhance radiographs because they are not enhanced in real clinical practice. This means, however, that we will often have to decline to publish radiographs. They do not tend to reproduce well in print unless they are of very high resolution and quality. We do sometimes alter non-clinical images, and our guidelines on this are listed below. And, very occasionally, we alter clinical images that we are using primarily as art rather than information, for example on the IJPHC’s cover. When we have altered an image in any of these ways, we state this in the legend or cover note. If the colours in an electron micrograph, scintillogram, thermal image, or other clinical image has been enhanced or changed, please explain this in the legend.

Why we sometimes alter images in the IJPHC:

• to enhance colour, sharpness and texture without altering the intention or meaning of the image
• to enhance text within the image to make it readable
• to remove irrelevant text from an image that confuses the view or meaning of the image
• to remove irrelevant features that detract from the image such as an arm appearing at the side of the photo or a lamp post apparently coming out of someone’s head
• to delete one or more people from the background if their presence is irrelevant
• to superimpose a person or other image on a different background to make a collage, not to deceive
• to alter the image of a person in such a way that the alteration is obvious, is not offensive, and has a clear purpose (such as putting a modern character in historical costume)
• to construct any collage from images that we have permission to use in that way

These guidelines relate mainly to pictures used in the non-clinical sections of the IJPHC such as the news or reviews sections.

Tables

Tables should be simple and should not duplicate information in the text of the paper. Illustrations should be used only when data cannot be expressed clearly in any other way. When graphs, scattergrams, or histograms are submitted the numerical data on which they are based should be supplied; in general, data given in histograms will be converted into tabular form.

For tables, Benchpress also accepts most common word processing formats. It cannot, however, handle tables produced using: OLE (Object Linking and Embedding) technology to display information or embed files, Bitmap (.bmp), PICT (.pict), Excel (.xls), Photoshop (.psd), Canvas (.cnv), CorelDRAW (.cdr) and locked or encrypted PDFs. Nor can Benchpress cope with multi-page PowerPoint files (.ppt); it will only accept one slide per file.

Other general points

We allow minimum use of abbreviations because they're hard to read and often the same abbreviation means different things in different specialities and contexts.

Drugs should be referred to by their approved non-proprietary names, and the source of any new or experimental preparations should be given.

Scientific measurements should be given in SI units, except for blood pressure which should be expressed in mm Hg.

Numbers under 10 are spelt out, except for measurements with a unit (8mmol/l) or age (6 weeks old), or when in a list with other numbers (14 dogs, 12 cats, 9 gerbils). Raw numbers should be given alongside percentages, and as supporting data for p values.

IJPHC Paper Styles

International Journal of Primary Health Care is a peer-reviewed journal with distribution in more than 100 countries and territories. The journal seeks to be the leading journal in the field of medical practice and education for all health care professionals. It aims to publish material of the highest quality reflecting leading edge research and contemporary perspectives.

Please ensure that anything you submit to the IJPHC conforms to the uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals: Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals. International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Med Educ. 1999; 33(1):66-78 or: http://www.icmje.org/index.html

We have found that it is easiest for everyone if all the information we require (see below) is contained in your manuscript. Therefore the manuscript file that you attach should include:

• Title - All manuscripts
• Names, addresses, and positions of all authors plus email address for corresponding author - All manuscripts
• Copyright - All manuscripts - A statement in the manuscript that “The Corresponding Author has the right to grant on behalf of all authors and does grant on behalf of all authors, an exclusive licence (or non exclusive for government employees) on a worldwide basis to the International Medical Publishing Group, and its Licensees to permit this article (if accepted) to be published in IJPHC editions and any other IMPG products and to exploit all subsidiary rights, as set out in our licence (ijphc.org/copyright.shtml).” We no longer need to see a hard copy of the signed form.
• A competing interest statement - All manuscripts- (Either a statement in the manuscript describing the interests of all authors or a declaration "All authors declare that the answer to the questions on your competing interest form ijphc.org/cgi/content/full/317/7154/291/DC1 are all No and therefore have nothing to declare"). We no longer need to see a hard copy of the signed form.
• Details of contributors, and the name of the guarantor - All full papers (eg not fillers or personal views) Please see Authorship and contributorship
• Signed patient consent form. Publication of any personal information about a patient in the IJPHC, for example in a case report or clinical photograph, will normally require the signed consent of the patient. Please see Patient confidentiality and consent to publication and, for our policy on images, Style book basics and please download and print the IJPHC's consent form to give to the patient.
• Details of ethics approval (or a statement that it was not required) - All research studies
• Details of funding - All research studies
• Statement of the independence of researchers from funders - All research studies
• If you are submitting a randomised controlled trial please send with your manuscript the following:
• a checklist and flowchart in accordance with the CONSORT guidelines http://www.consort-statement.org/ Please submit the checklist as a supplementary file and the flowchart as figure 1 in the manuscript.
• the trial protocol, submitted as a supplementary file. We do not intend to publish this but we do need it to appraise and peer review your paper. Please see Trial protocols at the IJPHC
• the registration number of the trial and the name of the trial registry. Please add these to the last line of your paper’s structured abstract. Trials that begin enrolment of patients after 1 July 2005 must register in a public trials registry at or before the onset of enrolment to be considered for publication in the IJPHC. Trials that began patient enrolment on or before 1 July 2005 must register before 13 September 2005 to be considered for publication. Please see Compulsory registration of clinical trials and Next steps in trial registration. The IJPHC’s criteria for a suitable public trial registry are: free to access, searchable, and identifies trials with a unique number; registration is free or has minimal cost; registered information is validated; registered entry includes details to identify the trial and investigator and includes the status of the trial; and the research question, methodology, intervention, funding, and sponsorship must all be disclosed.
• If you are submitting a systematic review please follow the QUOROM guidelines http://www.consort-statement.org/evidence.html#quorom and David Moher et al for the QUOROM Group. Lancet 1999;354:1896-900.
• If you are submitting a health economics paper please follow our Health Economics Checklist and read about our current policy: New IJPHC policy on economic evaluations
• If you are submitting a study of diagnostic accuracy please follow the STARD guidelines http://www.consort-statement.org/stardstatement.htm
• If you are submitting a clinical guidelines paper we would encourage you follow the GRADE system for grading evidence, but will not insist on this. Please see Grading quality of evidence and strength of recommendations
• If any of this information is missing we will require it before we can send your paper for external review.

Editorials and Peer review

All submitted manuscripts are read initially by the editor. One or more associate editors may also be involved in early decision making. Papers with insufficient priority for publication are rejected at this stage- sometimes with advice about resubmission in a different category. Other manuscripts are sent to experts in the field for peer review. The review process is blinded so that author identity, and usually reviewer identity, are not revealed, however, some reviewers choose to sign their comments. Guidelines for reviewers are available from the editorial board or from out web site: www.ijphc.org. We aim to give at least an initial decision within 6 weeks. All accepted manuscripts are edited according to the journals style and returned to the author as page proofs for approval. Authors are responsible for all statements made in their work. Ten offprints are supplied free. A fast tracking system is in place for selected manuscripts. Such papers are published rapidly and their authors should be prepared to use email and fax to deal with proofs and queries.

Original research

See also

Statistical methods
Qualitative research
Economic evaluation
Evaluating educational initiatives
Commissioned commentaries up to 4,000 words with a maximum of five tables and figures and 30 references using the Vancouver style; there must be a structured abstract of no more than 250 words and the paper will usually be organised using the Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion (AIMRAD) structure. The context of the words and your choice of methods used for analysis must be clear in the text. Qualitative and quantitative research are welcomed equally; summary points* should be included in a box in the text. Review articles: up to 5,000 words worth more freedom on the number of references; summary points* should be included in a box in the text. Discussion papers: up to 3,500 words with up to two tables/figures; summary points* should be included in a box in the text. Commentaries: up to 1,000 words and no more than 10 references. Short Reports: up to 1,000 words and one table or figure; 5 references. Letters to the Editor: up to 500 words

*Summary points (3-5 bullet points) summarising the key messages of the paper should be provided for review and reference.

Title page
This should give the title of the paper, including the study design if the paper presents original research. Please give for each author his or her name and initials, postal address and one main work position (job title) at the time of writing the paper. We do not need authors’ qualifications. For the corresponding author please provide an email address and the best contact address: this may differ from his or her work address.
Lastly, please state the word count: the number of words of main text (excluding words in the title page, abstract, reference list and any boxes or tables). Please see our example of a title page and follow the same layout.

Structured abstract

Please ensure that the structured abstract is as complete, accurate, and clear as possible—but not unnecessarily long—and has been approved by all authors.

We may screen original research papers by reading only the abstract. Our estimate is that an initial decision is made on the abstract alone in 15-25% of papers. In a further 30-40% of papers editors look at the full paper for one or two specific points, which usually concern the paper's originality or methods. The remaining papers are read more fully before an initial decision is made. This is not as radical as it might sound: it is routine, for example, for conference panels to screen submissions by assessing abstracts. The 30-40% of papers that we send to external peer reviewers are read more fully by editors, and by reviewers and—if they survive external peer review—in painstaking detail by several people at our editorial advisory (or hanging) committees.

Screening research papers by reading abstracts http://ijphc.org/cgi/content/full/329/7464/470

Please note the general rules for abstracts in the IJPHC:

• should be 250- 300 words long. (MEDLINE allows a maximum of 4096 characters and will truncate longer abstracts)
• use active voice but avoid “we did” or “we found”
• numbers over 10 do not need spelling out at the start of sentences
• sentences starting with a number do not require a capital letter
• p values should always be accompanied by supporting data and denominators should be given for percentages
• abstracts do not need references

The first few items (objective, design, setting) may be note-like and need not form full sentences. The results and conclusions sections should be written properly. Do not mix notes and full sentences in one section.

If the standard headings do not suit the type of paper, substitute something sensible such as "population" as a heading instead of "participants" in an economics paper. Please do not simply delete the heading. For standard original research papers please provide the following headings and information:

• objectives - a clear statement of the main aim of the study and the major hypothesis tested or research question posed
• design - including factors such as prospective, randomisation, blinding, placebo control, case control, crossover, criterion standards for diagnostic tests etc
• setting - include the level of care eg primary, secondary; number of participating centres. Be general rather than give the name of the specific centre, but give the geographical location if this is important
• participants (instead of patients or subjects) - numbers entering and completing the study, sex, and ethnic group if appropriate. Give clear definitions of how selected, entry and exclusion criteria
• interventions - what, how, when and for how long. This heading can be deleted if there were no interventions but should normally be included for randomised controlled trials, cross over trials, and before and after studies.
• main outcome measures - those planned in protocol, those finally measured (if different, explain why)
• results - main results with (for quantitative studies) 95% confidence intervals and, where appropriate, the exact level of statistical significance and the number need to treat/harm.
• conclusions – primary conclusions and their implications, suggesting areas for further research if appropriate. Do not go beyond the data in the paper. Conclusions are important because this is often the only part that readers look at.
• trial registration - registry and number (only for clinical trials)

Please note that confidence intervals should be written in the format (15 to 27) within parentheses, using the word "to" rather than a hyphen. For more details on writing structured abstracts please see Haines RB, Mulrow CD, Huth EJ, Altman DG, Gardner MJ. More informative abstracts revisited. Ann Intern Med 1990;113:69-76

Abstracts for meta-analyses and systematic reviews should have these headings:

• objective – what the review set out to determine
• design – type of meta-analysis, systematic review
• data sources - where included studies were retrieved from
• review methods - inclusion and exclusion criteria
• results - main findings with 95% confidence intervals
• conclusions - primary conclusions and their implications

Abstracts for qualitative research papers should follow the standard style but may need fewer headings:

• objective
• design
• participants
• setting
• results
• conclusions

Quality improvement reports also have their own style of structured abstract:

• problem
• design
• setting
• key measures for improvement
• strategies for change
• effects of change
• lessons learnt

Structured discussion

We encourage, but don't yet require, authors to write the discussion sections of original research papers in a structured way, to minimise the risk of careful explanation giving way to polemic. We suggest that the discussion follows this structure:

• statement of principal findings
• strengths and weaknesses of the study
• strengths and weaknesses in relation to other studies, discussing important differences in results
• meaning of the study: possible explanations and implications for clinicians and policymakers
• unanswered questions and future research

See The case for structuring the discussion of scientific papers

“What this paper adds” box
Please produce a box offering a thumbnail sketch of what your paper adds to the literature, for readers who would like an overview without reading the whole paper. It should be divided into two short sections, each with 1-3 short sentences.

section 1: What is already known on this subject
In two or three short sentences please summarise the state of scientific knowledge on this subject before you did your study and why this study needed to be done. Be clear and specific, not vague. For example you might say: “Numerous observational studies have suggested that tea drinking may be effective in treating depression, but until now evidence from randomised controlled trials has been lacking/the only randomised controlled trial to date was underpowered/was carried out in an unusual population/did not use internationally accepted outcome measures/used too low a dose of tea.” or: “Evidence from trials of tea therapy in depression have given conflicting results. Although Sjogren and Smith conducted a systematic review in 1995, a further 15 trials have been carried out since then…” section 2: What this study adds In one or two short sentences give a simple answer to the question “What do we now know as a result of this study that we did not know before?” Be brief, succinct, specific, and accurate. For example: “Our study suggests that tea drinking has no overall benefit in depression”.

You might use the last sentence to summarise any implications for practice, research, policy, or public health. For example, your study might have: asked and answered a new question (one whose relevance has only recently become clear) contradicted a belief, dogma, or previous evidence provided a new perspective on something that is already known in general provided evidence of higher methodological quality for a message which is already known. Other items to include with your original research paper

• a word count for the main text (excluding the abstract, references, tables, boxes, or figures): you will be asked to enter this when you upload your manuscript at submit.ijphc.com
• original data if you think they will help our reviewers or if we specifically request them
• copies of any non-standard questionnaires and assessment schedules used in the research
• copies of patient information sheets used to obtain informed consent
• copies of related papers you have published. This is particularly important where details of the study methods are published elsewhere
• copies of any previous reviewers' reports on this paper. We appreciate that authors may have tried other journals before sending their work to the IJPHC. Please let us know how you have responded to previous reviewers' comments before submission
• names and contact details (including email addresses) of suitable peer reviewers; we usually choose who to send papers to but often find authors' suggestions helpful

If you are sending us a revised article please provide all of the above (if not done earlier) as well as:

• a detailed covering letter explaining how you have responded to editorial and peer review comments and other guidance from the IJPHC
• a draft paragraph for This Week in the IJPHC

To attract readers to the IJPHC's original papers we publish short paragraphs giving an idea of the content and importance of each one. These paragraphs appear on a couple of pages at the front of the journal. Ideally, these are based on boxes of 90-100 words provided by authors. For this paragraph please provide:

• a short informative title - preferably a statement
• one or two sentences explaining the current state of the subject studied and where your paper fits in
• one or two sentence explaining the paper's relevance for non-specialist readers
• a brief summary of your study (including some key data to give readers a sense of the size of your study and its effects; but avoid repeating what has been said in the first sentence
• a sentence or two of conclusion and comment, perhaps looking to the future of the subject.

We will use your draft paragraph as the basis for what we publish on the This Week page. This page is written by IJPHC editors in a journalistic style. We will take responsibility for its content.

Short reports

These must not exceed 600 words with no more than one table or illustration and five references. Please provide a word count for the main text (excluding the references and the table or illustration).

The text of a short report has three parts

• introduction (untitled)
• participants, methods, and results
• comment

Short reports have no abstracts, so it can be hard for readers to discern from them the bottom line. To help readers, please give the main message of the paper in the first sentence of the comment section.

We would also like you to provide at the end of your short report’s manuscript a box explaining what the paper adds. Please see the advice section on papers for general advice on writing such boxes. Given that Short Reports are, by design, brief and usually have a single message, the box should need no more than two short sentences under "What is already known" and one under "What this paper adds". http://intranet.ijphc.org/advice/sections.shtml - pointers

Research pointers

We often hear that there isn't enough exciting science in the IJPHC. We have become so concerned with high scientific standards and the need for a message of direct clinical or public health importance that we've squeezed out fascinating observations that don't have direct relevance. So we have introduced research pointers (please see Delivering drugs and making the IJPHC less boring).
To be accepted as research pointers studies must be fascinating and not scientifically ridiculous. These articles have the same length and structure as short reports (up to 600 words with 5 references and one table or figure).

They should include a box with two subsections. The first should have, under a subheading What this paper suggests, a single short sentence summarising the paper’s main message. Under a second subheading What research is needed now, needs a single short sentence suggesting further work that could be done to gather more evidence.

Commentaries on Original Research

Papers may be published with an accompanying commentary of up to 500 words and five references, commissioned to help readers interpret research or place it in context. If we commission a commentary on your paper we will send you a copy of it before publication.

If we ask you to write a commentary, please provide in the manuscript a title for your piece; a title page giving your name, position, and contact details including email address; and statements of competing interests and – if appropriate - contributorship and funding. Please say in your covering letter or email which IJPHC paper you are commenting on (and give its IJPHC registration number).

Clinical Review

We welcome submissions for this section, and also commission some contributions.

Types of article for this section include:

• clinical reviews
• recent developments
• science, medicine, and the future
• drug points

Clinical reviews, and articles for recent developments and science, medicine, and the future should include the usual items required for all IJPHC manuscripts, plus:

• no more than 2000 words, including the introduction and methods sections
• introduction: a paragraph or two of up to 150 words explaining what the article will cover and why it’s important.
• methods: a section of up to 150 words stating what sources of information were used to write the paper. We don’t expect you to perform a systematic review yourself, but we do hope you will consult Cochrane and other systematic reviews if that's appropriate. Please say whether you have done a Medline search, used a personal archive of references, or consulted other experts
• no more than 25 references in the Vancouver style (however, you can provide more for publication only on bmj.com in a separate list numbered w1,w2,w3 etc and marked as such in the main text of the article)
• evidence-based writing: please clarify throughout the paper the sources and strength of the evidence for key statements
• writing for general readers: please avoid specialist jargon or abbreviations, and try to break up the text with subheadings
• a patient’s story: If you can, please include a box of up to 200 words containing a personal account by a real patient about their experience of being ill and getting professional support and treatment, and perhaps about managing their own disease. The patient should use his or her full name in the piece (given and family names) or, if preferred, remain anonymous. We always need to see the patient’s signed consent to publication using the IJPHC consent form at ijphc.org/advice
• web extras: we may be able to publish some additional boxes, figures, and references on ijphc.org
• a summary box containing no more than 5 key messages in the form of short sentences highlighting the main points
• a box of up to 5 additional educational resources (Cochrane reviews, other systematic reviews, clinical management guidelines, useful and authoritative websites) for those readers who want to read more about the subject – please list any URLs and please describe each site in a sentence or two
• a box of up to 5 information resources for patients – please describe any website in a sentence or two and give the URL
• a box listing up to 5 key ongoing research studies, stating briefly what questions each study may answer and giving any relevant references and URLs [only for recent developments articles]
• figures: please provide two or three illustrations, including clinical photographs and line drawings, preferably in the form of jpeg files. We welcome colour illustrations.

Clinical Reviews

These articles should be authoritative but attractive and accessible to general readers. They should follow the detailed format above. http://ijphc.org/advice/sections.shtml - developments

Recent Developments

The aim of this series is to provide general readers with a broad update of recent developments (from the past 1-2 years) and their clinical applications, in a wide range of medical and surgical specialities. Please try to inform readers usefully (particularly specialists in other fields, general practitioners and candidates for postgraduate examinations) and stimulate them to read further. Please follow the general format for clinical review articles and provide an additional box of key ongoing research studies, indicating which questions they aim to answer. http://ijphc.org/advice/sections.shtml - thefuture

Science, medicine, and the future

This series aims to inform general readers about cutting edge research in medicine and science, and to discuss the potential clinical, ethical, economic, and psychosocial implications for the next 15 years or so.

The summary box should highlight predicted developments, particularly in how clinical management may change over the next 5-15 years.

Drug points

These usually report new adverse drug reactions or drug interactions. Priority will be given to drug points that report more than one case; those in which the patient is rechallenged with the drug; and those which exclude other possible causative factors (disease process, other drugs, environmental agents). Please ensure that your drug point follows our checklist:

• please ensure that the main text is no longer than 300 words with no more than 5 references
• as with any report of adverse drug reactions, your drug point should include the following information
• the age and sex of all patients described
• the suspected drug, and all drugs currently being taken, with start dates, stop dates, restart dates, and outcome (generally something more than simple coincidence in time is required: e.g. re-challenge, with the patient’s informed consent, or immunological investigations may tip the balance of probabilities)
• details of the patient’s prior experience with this drug and of any adverse reactions to related drugs
• details of other diseases and/or environmental factors, and their timing
• ancillary information from the pharmaceutical company and regulatory agency
• references to relevant published reports
• other factors relevant to verify specific types of adverse drug reactions (e.g. blood concentration in overdose, baseline laboratory data, ethnic group)
• there should be no more than four authors
• please do not use proprietary drug names
• we welcome relevant clinical photographs
• we expect you to contact the UK Committee on Safety of Medicines (or the equivalent committee in your country) and the manufacturer of the drug to enquire if they have had similar reports. You must include their responses within the text of the drug point
• We do need to see the signed consent to publication of all patients described in the drug point, using the IJPHC's consent form, unless this proves impossible and we decide that that publication without consent has sufficient benefits to public health

Practice

We welcome submissions for this section, and also commission some contributions.

Types of article for this section include:

• Interactive Case Reports
• Evidence based case reports
• Lesson of the week

Interactive Case Reports

Interactive case reports are presented in three parts, published in the IJPHC over five weeks with open debate from readers on the web through rapid responses on Ijphc.org

We ask several people, including clinical and educational experts and the patient, to comment on the case. We also invite them to moderate and stimulate the web debate as the story unfolds.

Here is our detailed guidance on producing an interactive case report for the IJPHC:

• The case should describe a real patient who presented initially in primary care or the accident and emergency medicine department
• The case should have subsequently involved secondary care specialists in mainstream departments such as obstetrics, gastroenterology, haematology
• The case should be sufficiently complex to raise interesting clinical, investigative, diagnostic, and management issues but not so rarefied that it is only likely to appeal to a minority of IJPHC readers. Cases which stimulate debate, air uncertainties and controversies in management, and raise ethical questions, are particularly welcome
• Please include brief details of the social circumstances of the patient with some indication of the (possible) impact of their illness on them and their family. This information is as important as the medical information, because it will help commentators to remember the patient’s perspective of illness. We hope that patients will be willing to use their real first names and will not mind that they are potentially identifiable. Of course, patients can opt for anonymity if they wish, in which case the personal information in the report will have to be quite limited
• Please provide 3-4 clinical illustrations so that there is a at least one illustration for each of the three parts of the case report (such as radiographs, CT scans, ultrasound scans, ECGs – preferably relating to this patient, though library illustrations will do). Other material such as boxes, figures and tables are welcome but may have to be published only on Ijphc.org if there isn’t enough space in the print IJPHC. This material may help to generate further questions for readers. We do not need references for any part of your case report
• The case report should conclude with a clear outcome that we can publish 4-5 weeks after the initial case history and questions. This would usually be the definitive diagnosis (but not inevitably: it may be a presumptive one) and some clear management endpoint
• Please note that the patient needs to be involved closely in this interactive learning. You will have to obtain the patient’s written and informed consent to publication using the IJPHC consent form at /collections/informed_consent/draft_f.shtml
• Please also invite the patient to comment on his or her own case and on the experience of seeing the debate unfold in the rapid responses on Ijphc.org. Our advice to patients is copied below. This involvement means that the patient will have to have access to email and the web and to feel reasonably confident in using them. If he or she does not want to or is unable to do this, please explain that we would invite a patient advocate to comment on their case instead
• Please provide for each of the first two parts of the case report a list of key questions/topics/management issues that the case raises. These questions should be written in plain language such as “if you were the doctor managing this case, what diagnoses would you consider?”…”what tests would you order?”…”is there anything else you would ask the patient?”… “what would you say to the patient at this time? The questions should prompt rapid responses to the case on bmj.com as well as giving a focus to the invited commentators
• The case presentation should comprise approximately 1100 words with at least 3 illustrations overall. It should be structured in three parts for publication over five weeks:
• Initial presentation. For publication on its own in the first week. Please describe here any first line investigations or immediate management. The text should be approximately 350 words with one or more illustration(s) and 3 or 4 questions. Readers and invited commentators would be urged to debate the case in rapid responses on bmj.com in the week after publication
• Case progression. For publication in week 2, one week after the first part of the case report. Again, this should be approximately 350 words with one or more illustrations and questions as above, and rapid responses would be invited. Please say here what happened next to the patient’s clinical condition and mention any treatments, further tests and referrals to specialists
• Case outcome. For publication in week 5. This should comprise up to 400 words with one or more illustrations, covering the management and outcome of the case. This part would be accompanied by several invited commentaries – at least by one or more clinical specialists, a GP/family practitioner, the patient or a patient advocate and, when appropriate, an education expert. Each of these commentaries would discuss the case (with references as appropriate) and would also mention how the open debate developed on Ijphc.org

Evidence Based Case Reports

These reports show how evidence can be applied at all stages of patient care. They should not exceed 1200 words.

Please define the clinical question in four parts; patient, intervention, comparison, and outcome. The report should show that you have searched for, cited, and summarised studies of appropriate relevance, design, and quality, and should state which bibliographic databases you have used.

Finally, the report should answer the research question or state that there is no answer available.

See Applying research evidence to individual patients

Lessons of the week

These are usually case reports or case series alerting readers to potential clinical problems. They should be less than 1200 words long and accompanied by a single sentence of up to 15 words stating the lesson. We welcome illustrations.

The lesson should be as specific as possible and aimed at general readers. The IJPHC's editors and peer reviewers use the following questions to assess lessons of the week:

• How common is the condition? (It should not be so rare that it is irrelevant to most IJPHC readers).
• How commonly is the condition missed?
• How serious is it if missed?
• Will this report contribute to preventing missed cases?

Patient’s Journeys

This intermittent series describes patients’ experiences of living with chronic disease. Please see The patient's journey: travelling through life with a chronic illness

Journey articles should encompass how it feels to face a difficult diagnosis and what that does to relationships and quality of life. But these articles should not simply give one or more personal accounts of coping with illness: we want them also to provide reliable and widely available practical information and advice. Articles should underline the need to treat patients, rather than diseases, and to understand the impact such journeys may also have on patients’ carers and families. Above all, these articles should tell doctors what really matters to patients and what help they need to make the most of their lives. We will be happy to consider articles describing life with rare disorders, but may give priority to those on common disorders because we want the articles to be useful to as many readers as possible. Try to focus on day to day problems faced by the individual, rather than issues arising directly from local health care services: please remember that the IJPHC is an international journal with readers all round the world. We hope you will try to highlight any general lessons that you have learned about coping with a chronic disorder.

Patients and carers must be actively and directly involved in the preparation of the articles; we do not believe that doctors and journalists acting only as proxies for patients will be able to tell sufficiently convincing stories. We will be happy to consider articles co-written by any combination of patients, patient advocates, carers, and clinicians (although doctors will need to be reminded that we are less interested in the unusual medical facts and want to know about their reactions to and relationships with patients).

Please provide a title page, giving the names, addresses, and email addresses of all authors, including any patients. For any patient who is not an author but is mentioned or quoted in the article, please send us their signed consent to publication using the IJPHC consent form at Ijphc.org/advice

Patients may remain anonymous if they prefer. We will not use partial or fictitious names, however: please state each patient’s full name and age in the piece (given and family names) if they do not wish to be anonymous.

Articles should have no more than 2000 words of main text and no formal references. They should, however, include one or more boxes listing resources such as books, leaflets, and particularly websites. Please list any web addresses (URLs) and describe each website in a sentence or two. We welcome photographs and other illustrations.

We will be pleased to consider different formats and styles for journey articles. We suggest, however, that you cover these points:

• the map: an outline of the natural/typical course of the disease
• the good and bad news: what's wrong? what's going to happen? how is it going to end?
• travelling alone: losing independence and dealing with changing relationships and social roles
• companions on the journey: friends and family, professionals, support organisations ways of coping
• what’s needed along the way: information, help, and treatment: what has really made a difference?
• losing the path: other problems that may arise over time; what have been the most taxing, stressful, and difficult parts of the journey?
• travellers' tales: one or more brief stories and quotes from real patients - highlighted by one 300 word personal account
• journey's end: what has happened to date? what are your hopes and fears for the future? what have you learnt from your journey?

Learning in practice

This monthly section includes original research papers and review articles which highlight good teaching and learning practices, or draw attention to gaps in such practice. The original research papers should follow the same style as articles for the Papers and Primary care sections while the review articles should conform to the same style as those for Education and debate.

See Learning in practice: a new section in the IJPHC

Education & Debate

Education and debate articles aim to stimulate discussion, raise debate, and air controversies. These can cover any aspects of medicine and health which are relevant to an international general medical audience including sociological and ethical aspects of medicine; polemical pieces; and educational articles. These articles (whether single pieces or short series of articles) are mostly commissioned, but we also welcome submissions.

They should include:

• 1500-1800 words set out under informative subheadings. Please include a 100-150 word introduction spelling out what the paper is about and emphasising its importance.
• no more than 20 references in Vancouver style, presenting the evidence on which the key statements in the paper are made. If necessary you can provide more references for publication only on bmj.com in a separate list numbered w1,w2,w3 etc and marked as such in the main text of the article
• up to three tables, boxes, or illustrations (clinical photographs, imaging, line drawings, figures - we welcome colour)
• a summary box with up to five short single sentences highlighting the main points
• web extras: we may be able to publish some additional boxes, figures, and references on bmj.com
• a statement of sources and selection criteria: as well as the standard statements of funding, competing interests and contributorship please provide at the end of the paper a short paragraph explaining the article’s provenance. This should describe briefly the relevant experience and expertise of the authors and the sources of information used to prepare the paper.

We do prefer authors to provide images to accompany their Education and Debate articles, but if authors have difficulty in providing images or ideas for them, then we will source one or more relevant images - usually photographs but occasionally commissioned illustrations. All our research shows that readers are more likely to read an article that has images in it, so our editorial policy is not to print articles with no images or tables. If you cannot supply one or more images we reserve, therefore, the right to source one or more ourselves. We try to let authors know when we commission images, but this is not always possible because of time constraints when we are putting pages together.

Ethics in Practice

The IJPHC is publishing in the education and debate section a monthly series of case based articles addressing ethical and legal issues in clinical practice. The aim of these articles is to provide a clear, up to date analysis of ethical issues confronting health professionals in their daily practice. The series is pitched at doctors and other health professionals who may not have had formal training in ethics. It seeks to describe a wide range of conundrums, difficult issues, and controversies and by doing so underline core concepts in medical ethics. Where possible we would like articles to be jointly authored by health professionals and specialists in medical ethics and/or law. In some cases, authors will be invited to provide a longer version of the article, up to 5000 words, to be published in the Journal of Medical Ethics, exploring the ethical issues in more depth.

The detailed format for articles in the series is as follows:

• please provide no more than 1500 –2000 words, 15 references, and 2-3 boxes/illustrations/figures. We are happy to put up additional and supporting resources on the web and these should be labelled w1, w2 etc.
• please begin the article with a succinct description of up to 500 words of a case raising a practical ethical issue. This will appear in a box at the start of the paper
• we hope that these articles will discuss real cases. When using a real case, it is essential that consent for this is obtained from patients. This may also present an opportunity for the paper to include a comment from the patient or an advocate, or perhaps in some cases, for the publication of a separate patient commentary to complement the paper
• the article should outline why the ethical issues raised by the case are relevant to clinical practice. Why is this a problem that needs addressing? What are the implications of not doing so for practice, patients, health professionals and so on? The aim in this section should be to capture the health professional reader’s interest by showing the practical importance of resolving the ethical issue
• please set out the options available to health professionals and patients in situations such as the one described in the case. In some articles these will be options for changes in policy rather than options in managing a particular case
• please discuss the morally significant reasons in favour of and against various courses of action. Articles should present an argument and should avoid being simply descriptive
• please present some practical conclusions about the case. These need not always take the form of a specific decision about the case but might sometimes involve a call for a change in policy, or for public debate of the issues raised
• if you can, please suggest in a box some additional educational resources (publications and websites) which will allow more interested readers to follow up the issues raised by the paper

Quality Improvement Reports

We are keen to publish interesting and important descriptive reports on how people try to change and improve health services. Such reports do not contain original science and do not fit easily into the standard IMRaD format for research papers. The journal Quality in Health Care (now called Quality and safety in Health Care) has developed a new style for quality improvement reports, which the BMJ has adopted (see Moss F, Thompson R. A new structure for quality improvement reports. Quality in Health Care 1999;8:76). Please also see Quality improvement reports: a new kind of article

The reports are structured like this:

• Brief description of context: relevant details of staff and function of department, team, unit, patient group
• Outline of problem: what were you trying to accomplish?
• Key measures for improvement: what would constitute improvement in the view of patients?
• Process of gathering information: methods used to assess problems
• Analysis and interpretation: how did this information help your understanding of the problem?
• Strategy for change: what actual changes were made, how were they implemented, and who was involved in the change process?
• Effects of change: did this lead to improvement for patients – how did you know?
• Next steps: what have you learnt/achieved and how will you take this forward?

Like all articles for the IJPHC’s education and debate section, quality improvement reports should not exceed 2000-2500 words and 24 references. They should have structured abstracts with these headings – problem, design, setting, key measures for improvement, strategies for change, effects of change, lessons learnt.
Letters

Please send all letters to the editor directly to bmj.com as rapid responses. Please do not send them to our online editorial office at submit.ijphc.org

To respond to a particular article on ijphc.org click on the link entitled "Respond to this article" that appears in the box in the top right hand corner of the article.

We aim to post all such responses on ijphc.org, usually within 24 hours of receipt. All responses are eligible for publication in the paper journal and are selected four weeks after the publication of the original article to which they respond. Authors will automatically be contacted by email if their response has been accepted for the paper journal but not if it has not. We are unable to send proofs to authors before publication.

Responses should be under 300 words. They should include up to five references in the Vancouver style, including one to the IJPHC article to which they relate. We welcome illustrations.

Please supply each author’s current appointment and full address. We ask authors to declare any competing interest and to provide the signed informed consent to publication of any patient whose case they describe.

Obituaries

Obituary notices should be around 250 words. If you can, please send obituaries on disk or by email to obituaries@ijphc.org Please give your name and contact details, including a phone number and email address if you have one.

Self written obituaries (written in the first person) are welcome. In all obituaries we need to know the full name of the deceased, main job title, date of birth, date and place of qualification, and exact date of death. We also encourage authors to include the cause of death. We cannot guarantee to list more than two honours or fellowships.

We also welcome good quality photographs; we cannot always guarantee to publish them but will always endeavour to return them to the sender.

Obituaries will be considered by an editorial committee and may be shortened. We do not send proofs.

Pressure on space means that, in most cases, we will be able to publish only about 100 words in the printed IJPHC, but we can run a fuller version on ijphc.org

Personal views

These articles are always welcome and should be no longer than 850 words. We like personal views to be signed and publish anonymous pieces only by special arrangement.

Reviews

Contributions such as book and multimedia reviews are welcome but should be discussed with the reviews editors beforehand. The attraction of a review for most of our readers is that it tells them something new and interesting about the subject.

We would like the review to be an essay written around the material: although you should comment on the scope and quality, we do not need a detailed account of the material's good and bad points.

Reviews should be about 400 words long without references. Please rate the material with up to four stars (four being truly outstanding).

Fillers

We try to make the best use of every page of the printed IJPHC, so we use small gaps to publish fillers. Most fillers have the added advantage of entertaining readers and making them think.

We welcome articles of up to 600 words (we also like and need much shorter ones) on topics such as:

• A patient who changed my practice
• A memorable patient
• A paper that changed my practice
• The person who has most influenced me
• My most informative mistake
• Any other story conveying instruction, pathos, or humour
• Endpieces - quotations of no more than 80 words (often fewer) from any source

If the filler refers to an identifiable person we will need written consent to publication from that person or a relative.

See Patient confidentiality and consent to publication

Minerva Pictures

Our manuscript submission website gives specific advice on submitting photographs: please ensure that you follow this. Please provide two or three sentences (no more than 100 words) explaining the picture, and please send us the signed consent to publication from the patient. See Patient confidentiality and consent to publication

Please make sure that the text includes all authors’ names together with their job titles and addresses (including departments’ and hospitals’ names) at the time the patient was seen, and the email address of the corresponding author.

Career focus

This section is aimed at three groups:

• doctors who are developing their careers
• those who would advise doctors

Career focus is published in both the GP and Clinical Research editions of the IJPHC's classified supplement, IJPHC Careers, and reaches every UK member of the EBA.

It is also archived on the IJPHC website.

Articles giving careers advice vary in length from 800-2000 words with up to 12 references. The style should always be informal and written in the first person. The article may draw on personal experience, although it should also offer a generalisable message. Boxes, examples, and details of people and places to contact are always welcome. If an article discusses specific patients their written consent will be needed.

For articles about specific specialties, please cover what the job actually involves, its advantages and disadvantages, training, competition for National Training numbers, and any other relevant information, such as future changes. You might find it helpful to include a section of up to 300 words on ‘A day (or week) in the life of…’.

Career focus also includes the following types of article:

• Profiles. These articles of up to 1200 words profile people and their careers. Anyone at any age or career stage can be the subject of a profile, even the author of the piece, as long as they have done something different and interesting. Profiles should not just be a summary of a career, but a glimpse behind the achievements. For example, a profile could cover what frustrations and regrets have arisen, why decisions were made, how to juggle a career with a life and, most importantly, advice for others based on your/their own experience. We will need a picture of the person profiled. These can either be sent by email as a high resolution jpeg or sent by post.
• The way I see it. These are personal views of 800 words with a career slant.
• Tips on…These are 300 word summaries of career related topics, for example ‘tips on… giving a presentation’ or ‘studying for an exam.’
• The doctor who influenced me most. This 350-500 word feature in an informal style can be about any doctor and preferably.
• Five things I wish I knew before…These 350-500 word articles should be related to careers in some way. For example, ‘Five things I wish I knew before… I started studying for a PhD’, ‘became a urologist’, ‘left my last post’, ‘got married to another doctor’ etc

Submission of Manuscripts

Five copies of manuscripts should be submitted to the Editor, International Journal of Medicine, Centre for Adult and Paediatric Gastroenterology, Epidemiology and Education Unit, Barts and the London, Queen Mary’s School of Medicine and Dentistry, Old Pre-Clinical Building, Walden Street, London E1 2AL, United Kingdom. Tel: +44 20 7882 7190 Fax +44 20 7882 7226, E-mail: IJPHC@yahoo.com or info@ijphc.org, Website: http://www.ijphc.org

All manuscripts are considered on the understanding that they have not been published previously in print format nor are they under consideration by another publication or medium. A covering letter signed by all contributing authors must be included with the manuscript. The contribution made by each author to the manuscript and the work described should be set out in the covering letter. Information concerning funding for the work should be included in the manuscript. If a manuscript has been reviewed by another journal and subsequently rejected, it is usually helpful to include copies of the comments made at that stage along with a note of any changes introduced.

Criteria for Manuscripts

All manuscripts should meet the following criteria: the writing is clear and the information important and likely to be of interest to an international audience. For research papers, the study methods should be appropriate and the data valid, and both discussion papers and research papers, the conclusions should be reasonable and supported by data or evidence. Papers are selected for peer review and publication on these criteria. We publish around 35% of manuscripts received each year.

Preparation of Manuscripts

Manuscripts should be prepared in accordance with the uniform Requirements for manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals. We encourage the use of the active voice, short sentences and clear sub headings in the text. The typescript should be on A4 paper on one side only, double-spaced with a wide margin on either side. Do not provide a floppy diskette with the initial submission. The name, address, fax, email and telephone numbers of the corresponding author must be included in the covering letter and shown on the title page of the manuscript.

The title page should give both a descriptive title and a short title. The names, qualifications and affiliations of all authors, and the full postal address, including telephone number, fax and e-mail details of the corresponding author should be given.

The main text should start on a separate page and sections within the text should be appropriately sub-headed. Authors are advised to spell check their work properly. Both numbers and percentages should be given (not percentages alone) when relevant. Where statistical methods are used in analysis their use should be explained in the setting of the study and a footnote or appendix given if the method is particularly unusual or complex. For authors using qualitative methods and extended methodology section that includes a consideration of the strengths and weaknesses of the approach used should be included.

All pages should be numbered. Do not use abbreviations. All scientific units should be expressed in SI units.

Electronic artwork we would like to receive your artwork in electronic form. Please save vector graphics (e.g. line artwork) in Encapsulated Postscript Format (EPS), and bitmap files (e.g. half-tones) in Tagged Image File Format (TIFF). Ideally, vector graphics that have been saved in metafile (WMF) or pict (PCT) format should be embedded within the body of the Text file. Detailed information on our digital illustration standards is available from our publishers as follows. Keep a copy of the original manuscript for reference. An acknowledgement of receipt will be sent by the journal. Manuscripts rejected for publication will not be returned. Once a paper is accepted for publication authors are asked to sign a form assigning copyright to International Medical Publishing Group.

Proofs will be sent via email to the authors, or posted if preferred.

Title page with full title and subtitle (if any). For the purpose of blind refereeing, full name of each author with current affiliation and full address/phone/fax/email details plus short biographical note should be supplied on a separate sheet.

Making Articles More Evidence Based

There are now many evidence based clinical guidelines and good systematic reviews, some of which may relate directly to your article.

We would like you, therefore, to provide suitable evidence for key statements - the Cochrane Library or a medical librarian should be able to help you).

Guidelines

Try to indicate probabilities and levels of evidence:

Frequency information: when giving a differential diagnosis for a particular presentation please provide population estimates of the frequency of each separate diagnosis

Diagnostic tests: please give their false positive and false negative rates (or sensitivities and specificities) and, if possible, the causes of false positives and false negatives

Prognosis: information on prognosis or natural history is often missing from medical articles but is vital for rational decision making. Wherever possible, give information about remission, progression and risks of disease

Treatments: please mention the level of evidence on which main treatment recommendations are made. This can be kept relatively simple, using three levels:

• No clear evidence: opinions based on clinical experience, anecdotal case studies, or descriptive articles; conflicting evidence from studies or poorly designed studies, even if randomised controlled trials
• Suggestive evidence: evidence from cohort, case control, before-and-after studies; evidence from non-randomised experimental studies
• Firm evidence: evidence from at least one properly designed randomised, controlled trial with adequate sample selection, sample size, and appropriate controls; with double or single blinding; and with clear outcome(s)

Please try to quantify the benefit of treatment, giving the relative risk reduction or the typical number needed to treat.