International Journal of Care Pathways >
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These instructions comply with the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals formulated by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (for further details, see the ICMJE site)
1. Aims and scope
Our aim is to produce an authoritative, international journal which focuses on the issues related to ICPs as they affect patients, carers, health and social care professionals and stakeholders, including the purchasers and commissioners of services and those who monitor them for efficiency and effectiveness. This includes issues relating to the ICP tool itself and to the methodologies and outcomes related to planning, development, implementation and updating, education & training, communication and evaluation. The journal includes case studies of ICP projects and programmes from all over the world, as well as research papers. Debate and commentary are also included, to encourage readers to think critically and constructively about the many broad issues surrounding the application, management and evaluation of the ICP tool. The journal concentrates on highlighting areas of general applicability and practical significance and importance. It also addresses areas of conflict that may be associated with ICP projects and programmes. The journal includes regular book reviews and conference reports.
2. Editorial policy
Covering letter
The covering letter is important. To help the Editor in her preliminary evaluation, please indicate why you think the paper suitable for publication. If your paper should be considered for fast-track publication, please explain why.
Peer review
Papers are peer reviewed and the final decision on acceptance or rejection remains with the Editor.
Ethical approval
All research submitted for publication must be approved by an ethics committee.
Patient consent
Any article containing identifiable patient information must be accompanied by a statement of consent to publication.
If there is any doubt about whether or not information is identifiable, the Editors are happy to discuss this before an article is submitted.
Reviewers will also be asked to take careful account of issues relating to patient confidentiality when reviewing articles.
Case studies are not the only kinds of article to which this rule will be applied, but they will be subject to additional scrutiny.
Not only should submissions be accompanied by a statement of consent, but the Editors also expect to be informed about the measures that have been taken to anonymise the details that could have led to parties being identified.
They also reserve the right to work with the authors to make additional anonymising changes as they or the reviewers see fit.
The Editors may also ask authors to remove personal information that, whilst interesting and colourful, does not add to the substance of an article, but does increase the likelihood of parties being identified.
The exception to this will be where the patient has indicated in writing that she/he wants to be identified, has read the material, has discussed the consequences of being identified, and has agreed to the disclosure of all the personal information contained in the article.
In order to ensure that valuable and novel issues are aired, the Editors will sometimes consider publishing cases studies that contain potentially identifiable information where it has been impossible or clearly undesirable to seek consent from relevant parties.
However, given the strong preference for consent having been sought and obtained the reasons for not seeking consent must be compelling, and the public interest arguments for publishing the case must be powerful.
In cases where consent has not been obtained, the authors must provide a statement from a Medical Director or equivalent that the hospital or medical centre is happy for the case to be published.
Competing interests and other declarations
All authors are required to declare any conflicts of interest when submitting papers for publication.
Declarations of funding sources, a guarantor and a statement of contributorship are also required.
Permissions
All previously published material must be accompanied by the written consent to reproduction of the copyright holder.
An acknowledgement of permission should be included at the relevant point in the paper, and a full reference to the original place of publication should be included in the reference list.
Copyright
Authors of accepted manuscripts will be required to allocate copyright to the publishers prior to publication.
Acknowledgements
Only the help of those who have made substantial contributions to the study and/or the preparation of the paper should be acknowledged.
3. Types of articles The overall length of any manuscript should be 2000-4000 words. Contributions in the following categories will be considered:
4. How to submit a manuscript
Manuscripts should be prepared in accordance with the guidelines below and should be submitted to the Editor:
All submissions must be in English and must be accompanied by a covering letter from the principal author. Electronic copies are required for all submitted manuscripts. The author is advised to retain a copy of the manuscript for reference.
File formats
Text files must be saved in .doc or .rtf format. Other suitable formats include .tif for photographic images, .xls for graphs produced in Excel, and .eps for other line drawings.
5. How to prepare a manuscript
Formatting
Manuscripts must be submitted using double line-spaced, unjustified text throughout, with headings and subheadings in bold case. Press ‘Enter’ only at the end of a paragraph, list entry or heading.
Title page
The first page should contain the full title of the manuscript, a short title, the author(s) name(s) and affiliation(s), and the name, postal and email addresses of the author for correspondence, as well as a full list of declarations.
The title should be concise and informative, accurately indicating the content of the article. The short title should be no more than six words long.
Abstract
A structured abstract of no more than 200 words must accompany all Articles. The abstract should normally use four headings: Background (context and rationale); Methods (type of study, patients, materials, techniques); Results (main numerical data and statistical information); and Conclusions (main objective and verifiable conclusions). Letters to the Editor, Conference Reports and Book Reports do not require an abstract.
Tables
Tables must be prepared using the Table feature of the word processor. Tables should not duplicate information given in the text, should be numbered in the order in which they are mentioned in the text, and should be given a brief title.
Figures
All figures should be numbered in the order in which they are mentioned in the text. All figures must be accompanied by a figure legend. If figures are supplied in separate files, the figure legends must all be listed at the end of the main text file.
Line drawings should be produced electronically and clearly labelled using a sans serif font such as Arial. Graphs may be supplied as Excel spreadsheets (one per sheet). Other line drawings should be supplied in a suitable vector graphic file format (e.g. .eps)
All photographic images should be submitted in camera-ready form (i.e. with all extraneous areas removed), and where necessary, magnification should be shown using a scale marker. Photographic images must be supplied at high resolution, preferably 600 dpi. Images supplied at less than 300 dpi are unsuitable for print and will delay publication. The preferred file format is .tif.
References
Only essential references should be included. Authors are responsible for verifying them against the original source material. RSM Press uses the Vancouver referencing system: references should be identified in the text by superscript Arabic numerals after any punctuation, and numbered and listed at the end of the paper in the order in which they are first cited in the text. Automatic numbering should be avoided. References should include the names and initials of up to six authors. If there are more than six authors, only the first three should be named, followed by et al. Publications for which no author is apparent may be attributed to the organization from which they originate. Simply omit the name of the author for anonymous journal articles – avoid using ’Anonymous’. Punctuation in references should be kept to a minimum, as shown in the following examples:
Units
All measurements should be expressed in SI units.
Statistics
If preparing statistical data for publication, please read the statistical guidelines.
6. Proofs and eprints
Proofs will be sent by email to the designated corresponding author as a PDF file attachment and should be corrected and returned promptly; corrections should be kept to a minimum.
A PDF eprint of each published article will be supplied free of charge to the author for correspondence; hardcopy offprints may be ordered from the publisher when the proofs are returned.
