Submitting an Article Online

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Author Guidelines

Aims and Scope
The Journal of Health Sciences and Innovative Research (J. health sci. innov. res.) is a peer-reviewed journal published bi-annually by the Faculty of Allied Health Sciences, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka. The journal aims to promote and share innovative health-related research findings, which would benefit the health professionals in all disciplines of the healthcare system and the public.

Types of Manuscripts
The Journal of Health Sciences and Innovative Research considers health-related, innovative and original research work in the following categories.

• Full Research Papers
• Brief Reports
• Case reports
• Letters to editor
• Review articles

Article Submission
For new submissions, the following documents should be uploaded through the online submission system on the JHSIR's own website.

• Title page
• Manuscript (in word format)
• Cover letter- prepared according to the ‘Sample Covering Letter’
• Declaration form- prepared according to the ‘Sample Declaration Form’
• Marked ‘Checklist for Authors’
• Certification for the Ethical Clearance (if applicable)
• Marked checklist for research reporting, E.g. EQUATOR research reporting checklist.

Preparation of Title Page:
The title page should include:

• A concise and informative title
• The manuscript category
• Surname and initials of all authors (ex: Perera A.B., Ranatunga X. and Silva P.Y) (Indicate the corresponding author with *)
• Affiliation(s) of the author(s), i.e. institution, city, country
• Name, contact details of the corresponding author with an active e-mail address
• Acknowledgements (if applicable)
• Word count of the abstract and the manuscript

Preparation of Manuscript

• The manuscript should be free of errors and written in either American or British English (and not in mixed form).
• The manuscript should be prepared in single column with Times New Roman size 12 font, double line spacing and 2.5 cm margins from both sides using an A4 paper.
• There should be one-line space between each paragraph and no line space between sub-titles and paragraphs.
• Pages should be numbered consecutively.
• The content of the full research articles, brief reports, case reports and review articles should follow the following order; Title, Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions, and References (a combined result and discussion is also accepted where appropriate).
• Tables and figures should be inserted within the text where they should appear.
• Word limits for manuscripts should not exceed; 5000 words for full research articles, 3000 words for brief reports and review articles, 2500 words for case reports and 2000 words for a letter to the editor. Note that word counts should not include abstract, keywords, tables, figures and references. Longer manuscripts may be negotiated by the Editor-in-Chief in exceptional circumstances.

Title:
The title should be concise, clear and informative. It should reflect the work described in the manuscript.

Abstract:
The structured abstract should provide a brief summary and not exceed 250 words. The abstract must include subheadings; Introduction, Methods, Results and Conclusions.

Keywords:
Three (3) to six (6) keywords representing key contents of the article should be given.

Introduction:
The article should provide adequate background to the study with the existing literature. The aims of the study and its significance should be clearly explained.

Methods:
This section should provide a clear description of the study design, settings, and all procedures followed. If applicable, the details of the statistical analysis used should be provided.

Survey-based studies should include study design, sample population, sample size, study instrument, data collection, and analysis. The journal expects authors to adhere to the relevant research reporting checklists (E.g. EQUATOR research reporting checklist or other) and upload the marked checklist) with your manuscript submission.

Laboratory-based studies should consist of materials/study instruments, all study procedures and data analysis

Where necessary, approval for ethical concerns need to be included.

Results:
The study findings should be presented clearly and logically in the text.  All tables and figures should be numbered and cited in text in consecutive numerical order.  Data described in the text should be consistent with the relevant figures and tables.

Tables:
Tables should be clear and avoid gridlines. Appropriate table captions explaining the components of the table should be provided. Tables should be numbered consecutively (e.g., Table 1, Table 2, etc.). Tables should be self-contained and not duplicate information contained in the text. All abbreviations must be defined in footnotes. The maximum no of tables should be five (05).

Figures:
Figures, photographs, drawings, diagrams, graphs, and charts should be clear. Appropriate figure captions explaining the figure should be provided. Any symbols, abbreviations and units of measurement should be defined. Figures should be numbered consecutively (Figure 1, Figure 2, etc.). The maximum number of figures should be four (04).

Discussion:
Constructive discussion should be included with relevant published data.

Conclusions:
Conclusion(s) should highlight the significant findings of the study considering the objectives of the study.

References:
Adhere to Vancouver style. Reference citations in the text should be expressed by Arabic numerals in square brackets.

Examples:
In inflammation, opioid peptides synthesised in circulatory immunocytes are liberated and accumulated at the site of injury [1, 2, 5-8, 10].

The references should be listed under the “Reference List” in numerical order as they appear in the text/ article.

Journal Article: 
Should follow the order; names of authors, title of article, name of the journal (in italics), year of publication; volume: page numbers. DOI code (if available)

Examples:
When number of authors is 1 to 6:
Fernando, M.G.K.M., Priyadarshi, K.I.J., Shanika, L.G.T., and Samaranayake, N.R. Knowledge, perceptions and practices on modified release tablets among prescribers: A preliminary study. Journal of Health Sciences and Innovative Research. 2020;1(1):5-14. DOI: https://doi.org/10.31357/jhsir.v1i01.4769

When number of authors is more than 6:
Beiter, R., Nash, R., McCrady, M., Rhoades, D., Linscomb, M., Clarahan, M., et al. The prevalence and correlates of depression, anxiety, and stress in a sample of college students. Journal of Affective Disorders. 2015;173:90–96. DOI: 10.1016/j.jad.2014.10.054.

Books: 
Should follow the order; authors, title of the book, edition, place of publication, publisher, year of publication.

Example:
Rich, R.R., Fleisher, T.A., Shearer W.T., Schroeder, H.W., Frew, A.J., and Weyand, C.M. Clinical immunology: principle and practice. 5^th ed. Amsterdam, Elsevier, 2009.

Book chapter:
Should follow the order; authors, title of chapter, title of the book, edition, place of publication, publisher, year of publication, page numbers

Example:
Marriott, J.F. Wilson, K.A., Langley C.A., and Belcher, D. Pharmaceutical Compounding and Dispensing, Landon, UK. Pharmaceutical press, 2006, p. 209-253.

Website:
Should follow the order; authors, title, year, URL, retrieved date.

Example:
American society for clinical laboratory sciences. Value of clinical laboratory services in health care. 2005. Available at: http://www.ascls.org/pos ition-papers/175-value-of-clinical-laboratory-services/17-value-of-clinical-laboratory-services [Accessed: 25 September 2015].

All references must contain DOI code when available.

Authors are responsible for the accuracy of reference information.

Copyright and Licencing
Authors are required to transfer their copyright to the University of Sri Jayewardenepura.

Articles in JHSIR are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Plagiarism Policy: Manuscripts should be checked for plagiarism before submission. It should not contain more than 30% of plagiarized matters.

Review procedure
All the articles are peer reviewed through a double-blinded process. Once a manuscript is submitted, if it falls within the scope of the journal, the editor assigns the manuscript to a minimum of 2 reviewers for peer-review. The reviewers are selected considering their expertise and the subject area of the article. The peer review process takes 1 month – 2 months approximately. When all reviewers have submitted their reports, the Editor-in-Chief makes the final decision on the manuscript and notifies the author one of the followings,

• accepted as received
• accepted after satisfactory completion of minor amendments
• reconsider after major revision
• rejected

If revisions are needed, the authors are expected to revise their manuscripts in accordance with the changes suggested by the reviewers and submit the revised manuscript during the stipulated time period. Once the revised manuscript is received, the Editor-in-Chief makes the final decision on acceptability for publication and notifies the author.

Fees
There is no charge for publication.

Ethical Responsibilities
The contents should not be published elsewhere.

Ethical approvals
For studies involving humans and animals. ethical approval should be obtained from a recognised ethics review committee and necessary consent from the study populations. The above information should be mentioned in the methods section, including the reference no of the ethical clearance certificate. A copy of the ethical clearance certificate for such studies should be submitted along with the manuscript.

Competing interests
All financial and non-financial competing interests must be declared.

Funding
All sources of funding for the research reported should be declared. The role of the funding body in the design of the study and collection, analysis, and interpretation of data and in writing the manuscript should be declared.

Submission Preparation Checklist

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

1. The submission has not been previously published, in part or in whole, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
2. All third-party-owned materials used have been identified with appropriate credit lines, and permission has been obtained from the copyright holder for all formats of the journal. Authors acknowledge their responsibility to gain all permissions prior to submission.
3. All authors qualify as authors, as defined in the authorship guidelines, and have given permission to be listed on the submitted paper.
4. The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines. Every effort has been made to ensure that the submission is ready for peer review according to the journal's review policy (following the instructions to ensure blind peer review).
5. Tables are all cited in the main text and are included within the text document.
6. Figures are all cited in the main text and are uploaded as supplementary files. Figures/images have a resolution of at least 150dpi (300dpi or above preferred). The files are in one of the following formats: JPG, TIFF, GIF, PNG, EPS (to maximise quality, the original source file is preferred).
7. All patients included within case reports or other article types in which an individual or a group of individuals can be identified have signed informed consent forms, or had had their legal guardian do so.
8. Research has been approved by an appropriate ethics committee, with the name of the committee and reference number of approval included within the submitted file. Otherwise, a statement that ethics approval was not required has been added to the file.
9. The corresponding author is submitting an ORCID identifier in their author data and co-authors have been recommended to also provide an ORCID.

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