GUIDELINES TO AUTHORS

The Editorial Process

 A manuscript will be reviewed for possible publication with the understanding that it is being submitted to Asian Journal of Medicine and Health Sciences (AJMHS) and has not been published anywhere, simultaneously submitted, or already accepted for publication elsewhere. The journal expects that authors would authorize one of them to correspond with the Journal for all matters related to the manuscript. All manuscripts received are duly acknowledged. On submission, editors review all submitted manuscripts initially for suitability for formal review. Manuscripts with insufficient originality, serious scientific or technical flaws or lack of a significant message are rejected before proceeding for formal peer-review. Manuscripts that are unlikely to be of interest to the AJMHS readers are also liable to be rejected at this stage itself. 

Manuscripts that are found suitable for publication in AJMHS are sent to two or more expert reviewers. During submission, the contributor is requested to provide names of two or three qualified reviewers who have had experience in the subject of the submitted manuscript, but this is not mandatory. Preferably the reviewers should not be affiliated with the same institutes as the contributor/s. However, the selection of these reviewers is at the sole discretion of the editor. The journal follows a double-blind review process, wherein the reviewers and authors are unaware of each other’s identity. Every manuscript is also assigned to a member of the editorial team, who based on the comments from the reviewers takes a final decision on the manuscript. The comments and suggestions (acceptance/ rejection/ amendments in manuscript) received from reviewers are conveyed to the corresponding author. If required, the author is requested to provide a point by point response to reviewers’ comments and submit a revised version of the manuscript. This process is repeated till reviewers and editors are satisfied with the manuscript. 

Manuscripts accepted for publication are copy edited for grammar, punctuation, print style, and format. Page proofs are sent to the corresponding author. The corresponding author is expected to return the corrected proofs within three days. It may not be possible to incorporate corrections received after that period. The whole process of submission of the manuscript to a final decision and sending and receiving proofs is completed online.

Clinical trial registry

AJMHS would publish clinical trials that have been registered with a clinical trial registry that allows free online access to the public. Registration in the following trial registers  is   acceptable: http://www.ctri.in/; http://www.actr.org.au/; http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/; http://isrctn.org/; http://www.trialregister.nl/trialreg/index.asp; and http://www.umin.ac.jp/ctr. This is applicable to clinical trials that have begun enrolment of subjects in or after June 2008. Clinical trials that have commenced enrolment of subjects prior to June 2008 would be considered for publication in AJMHS only if they have been registered retrospectively with a clinical trial registry that allows unhindered online access to public without charging any fees.

Authorship Criteria

Authorship credit should be based only on substantial contributions to each of the four components mentioned below: 

1. Concept and design of study or acquisition of data or analysis and interpretation of data;
2. Drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and
3. Final approval of the version to be published.
4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Contribution Details

Contributors should provide a description of contributions made by each of them towards the manuscript. The description should be divided in following categories, as applicable: concept, design, the definition of intellectual content, literature search, clinical studies, experimental studies, data acquisition, data analysis, statistical analysis, manuscript preparation, manuscript editing and manuscript review. 

Conflicts of Interest/ Competing Interests 

All authors must disclose any and all conflicts of interest they may have with publication of the manuscript or an institution or product that is mentioned in the manuscript and/or is important to the outcome of the study presented. Authors should also disclose a conflict of interest with products that compete with those mentioned in their manuscript.

Submission of Manuscripts

All manuscripts must be submitted online through the “Online Manuscript Submission” page of the journal’s website. Authors do not have to pay for submission, processing or publication of articles. If you experience any problems, please contact the editorial office by e-mail at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The submitted manuscripts that are not as per the “Guidelines to Authors” would be returned to the authors for technical correction, before they undergo editorial/ peer-review.

Generally, the manuscript should be prepared in the following format:

[1] Title Page:

1. The type of manuscript (original article, case report, short communication, review article, Letter to editor, Images, etc.) title of the manuscript, running title, names of all authors/ contributors (with their highest academic degrees, designation and affiliations) and name(s) of department(s) and/ or institution(s) to which the work should be credited. All information which can reveal your identity should be here. Use text/rtf/doc files. Do not zip the files.
2. The total number of pages, total number of photographs and word counts separately for abstract and for the text (excluding the references, tables and abstract), word counts for introduction + discussion in case of an original article;
3. Source(s) of support in the form of grants, equipment, drugs, or all of these.
4. Acknowledgement, if any. One or more statements should specify 1) contributions that need acknowledging but do not justify authorship, such as general support by a departmental chair; 2) acknowledgements of technical help; and 3) acknowledgements of financial and material support, which should specify the nature of the support. This should be included in the title page of the manuscript and not in the main article file.
5. If the manuscript was presented as part at a meeting, the organization, place, and exact date on which it was read. A full statement to the editor about all submissions and previous reports that might be regarded as redundant publication of the same or very similar work. Any such work should be referred to specifically, and referenced in the new paper. Copies of such material should be included with the submitted paper, to help the editor decide how to handle the matter.
6. Registration number in case of a clinical trial and where it is registered (name of the registry and its URL)
7. Conflicts of Interest of each author/ contributor. A statement of financial or other relationships that might lead to a conflict of interest, if that information is not included in the manuscript itself or in an authors' form
8. Criteria for inclusion in the authors’/ contributors’ list
9. The name, address, e-mail, and telephone number of the corresponding author, who is responsible for communicating with the other authors about revisions and final approval of the proofs, if that information is not included on the manuscript itself.

[2] Main content of manuscript:

The main text of the article, beginning from Abstract till References (including tables) should be in rtf/doc/docx format. Do not zip the files. Limit the file size to 4 MB. Do not incorporate images in the file. If the file size is large, graphs can be submitted as images separately without incorporating them in the article file to reduce the size of the file. The pages should be numbered consecutively, beginning with the first page of the blinded article file.

[3] Images:

Submit good quality colour images. Each image should be less than 10 MB in size. Images can be submitted as jpeg files. Legends for the figures/images should be included at the end of the article file. 

Preparation of Manuscripts 

Manuscripts must be prepared in accordance with "Uniform requirements for Manuscripts submitted to Biomedical Journals" developed by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (October 2008). The uniform requirements and specific requirement of AJMHS are summarized below. Before submitting a manuscript, contributors are requested to check for the latest instructions available.

AJMHS accepts manuscripts written in British English.

Copies of any permission(s)

It is the responsibility of authors/ contributors to obtain permissions for reproducing any copyrighted material. A copy of the permission obtained must accompany the manuscript. Copies of any and all published articles or other manuscripts in preparation or submitted elsewhere that are related to the manuscript must also accompany the manuscript. 

Types of Manuscripts 

Original articles:

These include randomized controlled trials, intervention studies, studies of screening and diagnostic test, outcome studies, cost effectiveness analyses, case-control series, and surveys with high response rate. The text of original articles amounting to up to 3000 words (excluding Abstract, references and Tables) should be divided into sections with the headings Abstract, Key-words, Introduction, Material and Methods, Results, Discussion, References, Tables and Figure legends.

Introduction: State the purpose and summarize the rationale for the study or observation. 

Materials and Methods: It should include and describe the following aspects:

Ethics: When reporting studies on human beings, indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional or regional) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000 (available at http://www.wma.net/e/policy/17-c_e.html). For prospective studies involving human participants, authors are expected to mention about the approval of (regional/ national/ institutional or independent Ethics Committee or Review Board, obtaining informed consent from adult research participants and obtaining assent for children aged over 7 years participating in the trial. The age beyond which assent would be required could vary as per regional and/ or national guidelines. Ensure confidentiality of subjects by desisting from mentioning participants’ names, initials or hospital numbers, especially in illustrative material. When reporting experiments on animals, indicate whether the institutional or a national research council’s guide for, or any national law on the care and use of laboratory animals were followed.

Evidence for approval by a local Ethics Committee (for both human as well as animal studies) must be supplied by the authors on demand. Animal experimental procedures should be as humane as possible and the details of anaesthetics and analgesics used should be clearly stated. The ethical standards of experiments must be in accordance with the guidelines provided by the CPCSEA and World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki on Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Humans for studies involving experimental animals and human beings, respectively). The journal will not consider any paper which is ethically unacceptable. A statement on ethics committee permission and ethical practices must be included in all research articles under the ‘Materials and Methods’ section.

Study design:

Selection and Description of Participants: Describe your selection of the observational or experimental participants (patients or laboratory animals, including controls) clearly, including eligibility and exclusion criteria and a description of the source population. Technical information: Identify the methods, apparatus (give the manufacturer's name and address in parentheses), and procedures in sufficient detail to allow other workers to reproduce the results. Give references to established methods, including statistical methods (see below); provide references and brief descriptions for methods that have been published but are not well known; describe new or substantially modified methods, give reasons for using them, and evaluate their limitations. Identify precisely all drugs and chemicals used, including generic name(s), dose(s), and route(s) of administration.

Reports of randomized clinical trials should present information on all major study elements, including the protocol, assignment of interventions (methods of randomization, concealment of allocation to treatment groups), and the method of masking (blinding), based on the CONSORT Statement (http://www.consort-statement.org).

Reporting Guidelines for Specific Study Designs

Initiative	Type of Study	Source
CONSORT	Randomized controlled trials	http://www.consort-statement.org
STARD	Studies of diagnostic accuracy	http://www.consort-statement.org/stardstatement.htm
QUOROM	Systematic reviews and meta-analyses	http://www.consort- statement.org/Initiatives/MOOSE/moose.pdf statement.org/Initiatives/MOOSE/moose.pdf
STROBE	Observational studies in epidemiology	http://www.strobe-statement.org
MOOSE	Meta-analyses of observational studies in epidemiology	http://www.consort- statement.org/Initiatives/MOOSE/moose.pdf

Statistics: 

Whenever possible quantify findings and present them with appropriate indicators of measurement error or uncertainty (such as confidence intervals). Authors should report losses to observation (such as dropouts from a clinical trial). When data are summarized in the Results section, specify the statistical methods used to analyze them. Avoid non-technical uses of technical terms in statistics, such as 'random' (which implies a randomizing device), 'normal', 'significant', 'correlations', and 'sample'. Define statistical terms, abbreviations, and most symbols. Specify the computer software used. Use upper italics (P 0.048). For all P values include the exact value and not less than 0.05 or 0.001. Mean differences in continuous variables, proportions in categorical variables and relative risks including odds ratios and hazard ratios should be accompanied by their confidence intervals.

Results:

Present your results in a logical sequence in the text, tables, and illustrations, giving the main or most important findings first. Do not repeat in the text all the data in the tables or illustrations; emphasize or summarize only important observations. Extra- or supplementary materials and technical detail can be placed in an appendix where it will be accessible but will not interrupt the flow of the text; alternatively, it can be published only in the electronic version of the journal.

When data are summarized in the Results section, give numeric results not only as derivatives (for example, percentages) but also as the absolute numbers from which the derivatives were calculated, and specify the statistical methods used to analyze them. Restrict tables and figures to those needed to explain the argument of the paper and to assess its support. Use graphs as an alternative to tables with many entries; do not duplicate data in graphs and tables. Where scientifically appropriate, analyses of the data by variables such as age and sex should be included.

Discussion:

Include summary of key findings (primary outcome measures, secondary outcome measures, results as they relate to a prior hypothesis); Strengths and limitations of the study (study question, study design, data collection, analysis and interpretation); Interpretation and implications in the context of the totality of evidence (is there a systematic review to refer to, if not, could one be reasonably done here and now?, what this study adds to the available evidence, effects on patient care and health policy, possible mechanisms); Controversies raised by this study; and Future research directions (for this particular research collaboration, underlying mechanisms, clinical research).  Do not repeat in detail data or other material given in the Introduction or the Results section. In particular, contributors should avoid making statements on economic benefits and costs unless their manuscript includes economic data and analyses. Avoid claiming priority and alluding to work that has not been completed. New hypotheses may be stated if needed, however, they should be clearly labelled as such. About 30 references can be included. These articles generally should not have more than six authors.

Review Articles:

It is expected that these articles would be written by individuals who have done substantial work on the subject or are considered experts in the field. A short summary of the work done by the contributor(s) in the field of review should accompany the manuscript.

The prescribed word count is up to 3000 words excluding tables, references and abstract. The manuscript may have about 90 references. The manuscript should have an unstructured Abstract (250 words) representing an accurate summary of the article. The section titles would depend upon the topic reviewed. Authors submitting review article should include a section describing the methods used for locating, selecting, extracting, and synthesizing data. These methods should also be summarized in the abstract.

The journal expects the contributors to give post-publication updates on the subject of review. The update should be brief, covering the advances in the field after the publication of the article and should be sent as a letter to the editor, as and when major development occurs in the field.

Case reports:

New, interesting and rare cases can be reported. They should be unique, describing a great diagnostic or therapeutic challenge and providing a learning point for the readers. Cases with clinical significance or implications will be given priority. These communications could be of up to 1000 words (excluding Abstract and references) and should have the following headings: Abstract (unstructured), Key-words, Introduction, and Case report, Discussion, Reference, Tables and Legends in that order.

The manuscript could be of up to 1000 words (excluding references and abstract) and could be supported with up to 10 references. Case Reports could be authored by up to four authors.

Short Communications:

A Short Communication should consist of no more than 1500 words (excluding Abstract and references) and have a maximum of 3 tables OR figures. A shorter version of "Original Articles", they still contain original findings but whose methods, findings, etc. don't justify a full-length paper.  Short communications also include short papers that present original and significant material for rapid dissemination.  

Letter to the Editor:

These should be short and decisive observations. They should preferably be related to articles previously published in the Journal or views expressed in the journal. They should not be preliminary observations that need a later paper for validation. The letter could have up to 500 words and 5 references. It could be generally authored by not more than four authors.

 Other:

Editorial, Guest Editorial, Commentary and Opinion are solicited by the editorial board.

References:

Reference Style

This journal follows Vancouver format for referencing, as described below.
Text: Indicate references by number(s) in square brackets in line with the text. The actual authors can be referred to, but the reference number(s) must always be given. List: Number the references (numbers in square brackets) in the list in the order in which they appear in the text.

Examples:
Reference to a journal publication:
[1] Van der Geer J, Hanraads JAJ, Lupton RA. The art of writing a scientific article. J Sci Commun. 2010;163:51-9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.Sc.2010.00372.

Reference to a journal publication with an article number:
[2] Van der Geer J, Hanraads JAJ, Lupton RA. The art of writing a scientific article. Heliyon.2018;19:e00205. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2018.e00205 Reference to a book:
[3] Strunk Jr W, White EB. The elements of style. 4th ed. New York: Longman; 2000.

Reference to a chapter in an edited book:
[4] Mettam GR, Adams LB. How to prepare an electronic version of your article. In: Jones BS, Smith RZ, editors. Introduction to the electronic age, New York: E-Publishing Inc; 2009, p. 281-304.

Reference to a website:
[5] Cancer Research UK. Cancer statistics reports for the UK, http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/aboutcancer/statistics/cancerstatsreport/; 2003 [accessed 13 March 2003].

Reference to a dataset: [dataset] [6] Oguro M, Imahiro S, Saito S, Nakashizuka T. Mortality data for Japanese oak wilt disease and surrounding forest compositions, Mendeley Data, v1; 2015. https://doi.org/10.17632/xwj98nb39r.1.
Note shortened form for last page number. e.g., 51-9, and that for more than 6 authors the first 6 should be listed followed by 'et al.' For further details you are referred to 'Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts submitted to Biomedical Journals' (J Am Med Assoc 1997;277:927-34) 

Tables

• Tables should be self-explanatory and should not duplicate textual material.
• Tables with more than 10 columns and 25 rows are not acceptable.
• Number tables, in Arabic numerals, consecutively in the order of their first citation in the text and supply a brief title for each.
• Place explanatory matter in footnotes, not in the heading.
• Explain in footnotes all non-standard abbreviations that are used in each table.
• Obtain permission for all fully borrowed, adapted, and modified tables and provide a credit line in the footnote.
• For footnotes use the following symbols, in this sequence: *, †, ‡, §, ||, ¶,**, ††, ‡‡
• Tables with their legends should be provided at the end of the text after the references. The tables along with their number should be cited at the relevant place in the text

Illustrations (Figures)

• Upload the images in JPEG format. The file size should be within 1024 kb in size while uploading.
• Figures should be numbered consecutively according to the order in which they have been first cited in the text.
• Labels, numbers, and symbols should be clear and of uniform size. The lettering for figures should be large enough to be legible after reduction to fit the width of a printed column.
• The Journal reserves the right to crop, rotate, reduce, or enlarge the photographs to an acceptable size. 

Protection of Patients' Rights to Privacy 

Identifying information should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, sonograms, CT scans, etc., and pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian, wherever applicable) gives informed consent for publication. Authors should remove patients' names from figures unless they have obtained informed consent from the patients. The journal abides by ICMJE guidelines:

1)     Authors, not the journals nor the publisher, need to obtain the patient consent form before the publication and have the form properly archived.

2)     If the manuscript contains patient images that preclude anonymity or a description that has an obvious indication of the identity of the patient, a statement about obtaining informed patient consent should be indicated in the manuscript.

Sending a revised manuscript 

The revised version of the manuscript should be submitted online in a manner similar to that used for submission of the manuscript for the first time. When submitting a revised manuscript, contributors are requested to include, the ‘referees’ remarks along with point to point clarification at the beginning in the revised file itself. In addition, they are expected to mark the changes as underlined or coloured text in the article.

Publication schedule

The articles will be published biannually after the editorial process.

Manuscript submission, processing and publication charges 

The journal does not charge any article-processing charge or any other fees for publishing accepted articles.

Copyrights  

The entire contents of the AJMHS are protected under Malaysian and international copyrights. The Journal, however, grants to all users a free, irrevocable, worldwide, perpetual right of access to, and a license to copy, use, distribute, perform and display the work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works in any digital medium for any reasonable non-commercial purpose, subject to proper attribution of authorship and ownership of the rights. The journal also grants the right to make small numbers of printed copies for their personal non-commercial use under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 Unported License.

Checklist  

Authors

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

Presentation and format

• Double spacing
• Margins 2.5 cm from all four sides
• Time New Roman font sized 16 and bold for the title, font size 12 and bold for the sub-headings and font size 12 for the body text.
• Page numbers included at the bottom
• Title page contains all the desired information
• Running title provided (not more than 50 characters)
• Abstract page contains the full title of the manuscript
• Abstract provided (structured abstract of 250 words for original articles, unstructured abstracts of about 150 words for all other manuscripts excluding letters to the Editor)
• Keywords provided (three or more)
• Introduction of 75-100 words
• Headings in title case (not ALL CAPITALS)
• The references cited in the text should be within a square bracket in line with the text.
• References according to the journal's instructions, punctuation marks checked
• Send the article file without ‘Track Changes’

Language and grammar

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

Tables and figures

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