AUTHOR GUIDELINES

EDITORIAL POLICY

The journal accepts manuscripts written in either US or UK English. Submission of a manuscript signifies that it has been submitted solely to the journal, has not been submitted concurrently to other journals, and has not been published previously elsewhere. Considerations will be given to manuscripts with abstract presented as poster or podium presentations in conferences. Upon submission, an author must be designated to correspond with the journal. All submitted manuscripts will be initially checked for similarity index by using iThenticate, as well as for adherence to the journal’s guidelines by the Editorial Assistant. Overall similarity should not be more than 20% with less than 5% from any single source. Manuscripts that were not prepared in accordance with the journal’s guidelines will be immediately sent back to the authors for revisions. Well-prepared manuscripts, together with their similarity index report, will be forwarded to the Editor-in-Chief (EIC). The EIC will perform an initial evaluation on the basis of the following broad criteria: quality, originality, and relevance. Manuscripts that do not meet these criteria will be rejected at this stage. Manuscripts with substantial similarity index identified by the iThenticate will be rejected at this stage. The board also reserves the right to investigate the authors who submitted manuscripts with high similarity index and institute disciplinary actions, such as banning the authors in submitting future works in the journal. The manuscript that passed the initial assessment of the EIC will be forwarded to an Editor responsible for the specific subject of the study. The Editor will perform another evaluation and decide whether to forward the manuscript to the peer review stage or to send back the paper to the EIC for rejection. Papers that will pass the evaluation of the Editor will be sent to at least three (3) external reviewers, who will perform a thorough evaluation of the manuscript.A statistical review will be conducted by a statistician to ensure the appropriateness and correctness of statistical analyses. The reviewers’ report will be evaluated by the Editor whose decision may be as follows: (1) accept, (2) minor revision, (3) major revision, or (4) reject. Reviewers can provide recommendations, but the final decision maker will be the Editor. Revisions of the paper can be requested from the authors until the reviewers and the Editor are satisfied. Accepted papers will be copyedited by an English editor and will be formatted for the journal’s format. The typeset proof will be forwarded to the corresponding author for final corrections. The authors are responsible for all the contents of the manuscript, as well as the revisions made throughout the editorial process. Corrected proofs must be returned after 72 hours (3 days) to the journal. The authors should be careful in making all corrections during the proofreading stage. No further corrections can be done after the corrected proof has been submitted.The journal is committed to ensuring quality and speed of knowledge dissemination; hence, the journal publishes the uncorrected version of the manuscript as “Ahead of Print” instantly after acceptance.

AUTHORSHIP POLICY

JMAHS strictly complies with the authorship guideline endorsed by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). Identified authors are obliged to fulfill these four criteria:

Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; OR the acquisition, analysis, OR interpretation of data for the work;
Drafting the work OR revising it critically for important intellectual content;
Final approval of the version to be published; AND
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.

A detailed description of the contributions of all listed authors should be written on the Title page of the submitted work. Those who fail to meet the four criteria must not be included as authors and should be mentioned in the acknowledgment section. The editorial board has the right to decline the publication of manuscripts submitted with unclear author contribution or with authors who do not meet the four criteria. For more information about the ICMJE authorship guideline, please visit http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html.

Authors must follow this format in providing details of contributions:

Conception or design of the work: NA, JPC
Collection, analysis, or interpretation of data: NA, JPC, AS
Drafting of the manuscript: NA, JPC
Critical revision of the manuscript: NA, JPC, AS
Approval of the final version of the manuscript: NA, JPC, AS
Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work: NA, JPC, AS

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

Disclosure of conflict of interest (COI) is applicable to authors, peer reviewers, editors, and staff. All financial and personal associations that may present bias to the work should be declared. A statement of COI is required to be written in the “Title page” under the subheading “Conflict of Interest.” Authors who do not have COI to declare are required to include this statement “The authors declare no conflict of interest.” Funding information, including the complete funder’s name, the grant name (if available), and grant number (if available). must be clearly stated upon submission. Funding information must be written in the “Title page” under the subheading “Funding.”The authors should accomplish the COI form of the ICMJE and submit it with the manuscript.

Reviewers are obliged to divulge to editors COI that may provide potential bias on their judgment of the paper. Reviewers must not accept to review a manuscript when potential bias exists. Also, reviewers should not utilize any information of the manuscript they are reviewing prior to its publication to advance their personal interests.

Editors should inhibit from the editorial process when they have COI or connections that may present possible conflicts to the manuscript under deliberation. Editors and staff should not utilize for private and personal advantage any information from the manuscript under consideration.

RESEARCH ETHICS POLICY

The journal will only consider manuscripts of studies conducted in accordance to high ethical standards and this should be clearly reflected in the manuscript. JMAHS requires submitted studies to adhere to international ethical standards for conducting research, such as the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki (2008; https://www.wma.net/what-we-do/medical-ethics/declaration-of-helsinki/doh-oct2008/), Committee on Publication Ethics (https://publicationethics.org/), World Association of Medical Editors (http://www.wame.org/), International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (http://www.icmje.org/), and the National Institutes of Health Policy on Use of Laboratory Animals or equivalent (https://olaw.nih.gov/home.htm). Moreover, studies are required to adhere to the legal rules, regulations, and policies of conducting research in the country where the study was conducted. All ethical considerations observed in the conduct of the study should be explicitly presented under the subheading “Ethical Considerations” in the Methods section. Ethical information that should be presented include but is not limited to (1) complete name of Ethical Board or Committee that reviewed and granted ethical approval to the study; (2) approval number; (3) administrative permission granted to conduct the study in the site; (4) permission to use the scale (if scales or instruments are used); (5) discussion on how participants were protected ethically; (6) informed consent; and (7) whether incentives were given or not for participation. Experiments employing animals must adhere to a proper body, such as the National Research Council Guide for the care and utilization of laboratory animals.The editors have the right to immediately reject papers with an unclear presentation of ethical considerations.

COPYRIGHT POLICY

Submission of the manuscript to the journal implies the authors’ agreement to exclusively transfer copyrights of all materials contained in the submitted submission to JMAHS once the manuscript is accepted. A copyright agreement form will be signed by all authors once the manuscript has been accepted. The copyright of the published article will be issued under the “Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial License.” This copyright enables the free non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction of the published papers in any channel, given that it is given due credit. Authors are responsible in obtaining approval to use any tables, figures, and other materials from their copyright holder.

MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION

Manuscripts are prepared using Microsoft Word, with the following specifications: (1) A4 size, (2) one inch margin in all sides, (3) Times New Roman font type, (4) font size 12, and (5) page number on the center, bottom part of the page.

Word Limitation

The journal allows a generous amount of word limitations for different types of manuscript submitted. Quantitative and qualitative manuscripts, including mixed-methods studies are allowed up to 5000 words, including the Abstract and the References. All forms of reviews are given a maximum of 6000 words, including the Abstract and the References. All other types of manuscript are allowed up to 3000 words, including the Abstract and the References. These restrictions also apply on the revised version of the manuscript after peer review.

Cover Letter

A cover letter should accompany the submitted manuscript. The cover letter will provide brief information about the submitted study. It also contains statements declaring (1) the manuscript has been submitted solely to the journal and has not been published elsewhere, (2) the authors meet all the four criteria of authorship stated above, (3) the manuscript is prepared on the basis of the journal’s guideline, (4) the referencing style and the references follow the prescribed style of the journal, (5) the ethical approval of the study is submitted, and (6) the COI is disclosed. The cover letter must be signed by all the listed authors.

Title Page

The title page must contain all the general information about the manuscript as follows:

Title of the Study:Should be self-explanatory and usually not more than 12 words. Name of countries or institutions should not be included in the title of the study.
Author Information: This part includes the author’s complete name (first name, middle initial, and last name), at most three qualifications, job title, department (or college), university/institution where the work should be attributed (maximum of three is allowed), complete address of the university/institution, email address, and Open Researcher and Contributor Identification (ORCID). The arrangement of authors in the title page should be decided by the authors. All information about the authors should be included in the title page. No authors’ information must be included in the manuscript.
Corresponding Author: One author should be assigned as the corresponding author. Additional contact information, such as mailing address, telephone number, and fax number, must be included.
Funding Statement: The statement should include the name of the funder, the name of the grant (if available), the grant number, and the complete address of the funder. It is the responsibility of the authors to make sure for the correctness of the funder’s information. Authors may use the Open Funder Registry for the accurate nomenclature of their funder (https://www.crossref.org/services/funder-registry/).If none, this statement must be written:“This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.”
COI Statement: Authors’ potential COI should be clearly stated. If none, a statement “The authors declare no conflict of interest” should be stated.
Acknowledgmens and Authorship Contributions: Please see the Authorship Policy above.

Abstract

An abstract must be written at the beginning of the manuscript. The journal uses a structured abstract. All manuscripts are allowed up to 250 words with the following headings: Introduction, Aim, Method, Results, and Conclusion. The abstract should be able to stand alone and should not contain any references.

Types of Articles

A. Original Articles

Original articles must contain data that have not been previously reported. Manuscripts must be original and exhibit excellent scientific rigor and merit. Secondary data analysis may be considered if meaningful and significant justification is provided. Generally, original articles have the following main sections:

Introduction: This section must provide context and background of the issue and incorporate national and international literature. The nature of the problem, as well as the significance of the study, must be explicitly discussed. The objectives and hypotheses being tested should also be included. Only the most recent literature related to the problem studied, as well as articles published in credible journals, should be included.
Methods:This should contain complete information about the materials and methods employed in the study. Authors can use subheadings, such as design, samples and settings, ethical consideration, measures/instrument/assessments, recruitment and data collection, data analysis, and if a qualitative or mixed-method study, rigor and trustworthiness. In the study design, authors are required to explain the suitability of the chosen design. Complete description of the settings of the study is needed to improve the transferability of the reported findings to other settings. The sample size, sampling technique, and sample size calculation must also be presented in detail. Inclusion and exclusion criteria must be elaborated. For experimental studies, description of the experimental participants (patients, including controls) is required.Detailed descriptions of the instruments are required. Including the following information in this subsection is recommended: (1) description of the tool [including how many items, type of questions, dimensions/sub-scales if present], (2) what the tool measures, (3) scoring and possible range of scores as needed, (4) how results are interpreted, and (5) validity and reliability of the tool. Permissions must be sought before any research tool is used. For ethical considerations, please refer to the Research Ethics Policy section. A detailed description of the recruitment and the data collection must be presented. Manuscripts reporting randomized clinical trials (RCT) should adhere to the guidelines recommended by the CONSORT Statement (http://www.consort-statement.org).The journal will only consider RCTs registered in a World Health Organization-accredited trial registry, such as clinicaltrials.gov.
Results:This section must be presented in a coherent manner. Textual presentation of the findings is necessary and should not be a repetition of the data presented in tables or figures. Large tables, figures, and materials can be submitted as supplementary materials and will be published alongside the article when accepted as supplementary file. The authors must comply with the proper reporting of results of different statistical analyses. Tables and figures should be referenced accurately and properly in the results section. See the guidelines regarding the use of tables and figures below.
Discussion:This section should include a summary of important results, interpretations, and implications. It should discuss related articles that support or oppose the current findings and present possible explanation on the differences or similarities of the results. The strengths and limitations of the study should be explicitly discussed in this section. Recommendations for future studies may be incorporated. Authors are advised to make the discussion as briefly and concisely as possible and avoid repetition of information mentioned in the introduction and methods sections. The most recent literature and articles published in credible journals should be used to support arguments in the study.
Conclusion:This section must briefly discuss what can be concluded from the findings.

B. Review Articles

Authors are expected to adhere to the recommended reporting style of PRISMA found in http://www.prisma-statement.org/. The title should emphasize whether the article is systematic, meta-analysis, or both.

Introduction:The introduction must include the reason of conducting the review and what knowledge on the topic has already been established. Authors must provide the question tackled in the review in accordance with the Participants, Interventions, Comparisons, Outcomes, Study, and Design format.
Methods:The method section must contain the following information: registration and protocol information, inclusion criteria, source/s of information, search strategy, process of choosing the articles included, methods of extracting data, information about the variables of interest, strategies utilized to assess the risks of bias of each article, summary of measures, description of strategies used to handle data and to combine findings of studies, strategies utilized to assess the risks of bias affecting aggregated evidence, and other types of analyses used.
Results:Information on selecting the articles using a flowchart (the number of articles screened, evaluated for eligibility, and included;the reasons for non-inclusion in every stage), characteristics of the data extracted, presentation of data, risks of bias for every article, findings of each article, synthesis of findings, presentation of the findings on the assessed risk of bias across all articles, and presentation of findings of other analyses. The results of literature reviews are usually summarized using table.Hence, long tables must be submitted to the journal as supplementary files.
Discussion:For the discussion section, authors must provide a summary of the key results indicating the strength of evidence for each outcome variable and discussing their significance. Limitations of the review must be discussed.
Conclusion:Authors must offer a general interpretation of findings within the framework of existing evidence, and implications to further studies must be presented in the conclusion section.

C. Evidence-based Summary

This type of article summarizes evidence originating from high-quality systematic review for healthcare workers, patients, and policymakers. In general, evidence-based summary reports have the following structure:

Introduction: This section describes the problem and its importance.
Aim:The aim presents the question/s the evidence-based summary summary searched and answered. Hypotheses are occasionally presented.
Methods:This section provides a detailed description of the strategy used to gather the evidence, including the criteria used to include or exclude evidence and appraisal of evidence.
Results:This section shows the yield of the search strategies; the number of articles rejected at every stage (title, abstract, and full copy); and the final number of articles included and critical appraisal scores. An evidence table is usually presented.
Discussion:Authors must present critical analyses of the findings reported. The core arguments are presented in this section.
Conclusions:Authors should draw conclusions out of the analyses of the literature and providean overall conclusion regarding the quality of the evidence.

D. Case Reports

The journal accepts case reports that are novel, new, thought-provoking, or rare. JMAHS requires case reports to have the following sections:

Introduction:This section provides a brief and concise summary of the problem/s addressed by the report
Cases:The authors are required to describe the patient, provide the history of the case, present the findings of physical examination, pathological tests, and other related tests conducted, plan of treatment, expected outcomes, and actual outcomes. A subheading on patient informed consent and ethical considerations is a vital component of this section.
Discussion:The discussion section must start with the discussion of the rationale and significance of the case and the problem. An overview of what is already known in the subject must be provided and should focus on the misunderstandings or challenges addressed in the case. Authors should discuss the case within the context of existing evidence, whether the present findings validate or go against the present knowledge. The contribution to clinical practice must be highlighted in this section.
Conclusion:The report must end with a summary of the key points. Recommendations are made in this section.

E. Letter to the Editor

JMAHS accepts brief and critical letters to the editor that focus on studies published (including editorials/commentaries) in the journal. JMAHS does not accept preliminary observations that require a follow-up paper for validation. The journal allows a maximum of 500 words with not more than five (5) references.

F. Others

JMAHS also publishes commentary, editorials and guest or invited editorials.

REFERENCES

References that are published in non-credible journals, predatory journals, or journals published by predatory publishers should not be cited. References should be numbered consecutively following the order they were cited in the manuscript. The references in text, tables, and legends should be indicated through Arabic numbers in superscript with a square bracket after the punctuation marks. References cited only in tables or figure legends must be numbered in accordance with the sequence established by the first identification in the text of the particular table or figure. The style of the examples provided and are established on the formats used by the NLM in Index Medicus should be followed. Journal titles must be abbreviated fitting to the style used in Index Medicus. The complete name of the journal for non-indexed journals should be utilized, and using abstracts as references are discouraged. Information from manuscripts submitted but not accepted should be cited in the text as ‘unpublished observations’ with written permission from the source. Citing ‘personal communication’ should be avoided unless it provides essential information not available from a public source, in which case the name of the person and date of communication should be cited in parentheses in the text.

The commonly cited types of references are shown.For other types of references such as newspaper items please refer to ICMJE Guidelines (http://www.icmje.org or http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html).

Articles in Journals

Standard journal article (for up to six authors):Alquwez N, Cruz JP, Almazan JU, Alamri MS, Mesde JJ. The Arabic version of the Kogan Attitudes toward Older People Scale among Saudi nursing students: a psychometric analysis. Ann Saudi Med 2018;38:399-407.

Standard journal article (for more than six authors): List the first six contributors followed by et al.: Alquwez N, Cruz JP, Alshammari F, Felemban EM, Almazan JU, Tumala RB, et al. A multi-university assessment of patient safety competence during clinical training among baccalaureate nursing students: A cross-sectional study. J ClinNurs 2019;28:1771-1781.

Volume with supplement: Shen HM, Zhang QF. Risk assessment of nickel carcinogenicity and occupational lung cancer. Environ Health Perspect 1994; 102 Suppl 1:275-82.

Issue with supplement: Payne DK, Sullivan MD, Massie MJ. Women’s psychological reactions to breast cancer. Semin Oncol 1996; 23(1, Suppl 2):89-97.

Books and Other Monographs

Personal author(s): Ringsven MK, Bond D. Gerontology and leadership skills for nurses. 2nd ed. Albany (NY): Delmar Publishers; 1996.

Editor(s), compiler(s) as author: Norman IJ, Redfern SJ, editors. Mental health care for elderly people. New York: Churchill Livingstone; 1996.

Chapter in a book: Phillips SJ, Whisnant JP. Hypertension and stroke. In: Laragh JH, Brenner BM, editors. Hypertension: pathophysiology, diagnosis, and management. 2nd ed. New York: Raven Press; 1995. pp. 465-78.

Electronic Sources as Reference

Journal article on the Internet

Abood S. Quality improvement initiative in nursing homes: the ANA acts in an advisory role. Am J Nurs [serial on the Internet]. 2002 Jun [cited 2002 Aug 12];102(6):[about 3 p.]. Available from: http://www.nursingworld.org/AJN/2002/june/Wawatch.htm

Monograph on the Internet

Foley KM, Gelband H, editors. Improving palliative care for cancer [monograph on the Internet]. Washington: National Academy Press; 2001 [cited 2002 Jul 9]. Available from: http://www.nap.edu/books/0309074029/html/.

Homepage / Website

Cancer-Pain.org [homepage on the Internet]. New York: Association of Cancer Online Resources, Inc.; c2000-01 [updated 2002 May 16; cited 2002 Jul 9]. Available from: http://www.cancer-pain.org/.

Part of a Homepage / Website

American Medical Association [homepage on the Internet]. Chicago: The Association; c1995-2002 [updated 2001 Aug 23; cited 2002 Aug 12]. AMA Office of Group Practice Liaison; [about 2 screens]. Available from: http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/1736.html

TABLES

Tables should be clear, easily understood, and can stand alone.
Title describing the contents of the table should be indicated on top of the table.
The columns and rows should not exceed 10 and 25, respectively.
Arabic numerals must be used in numbering the tables, consistent with their appearance in the text.
Descriptions, definitions, and acronyms must be indicated in the footnotes.
Authors are responsible in obtaining permission to use tables and figures in the present study and credits should be indicated at the footnote.
The use of the symbol * is reserved for statistical significance (* for 0.05, ** for 0.01, and *** for 0.001). Other symbols should be used in this order: †, ‡, §, ||, ¶, ††, and ‡‡.
Tables must be placed in a separate file during the submission of the manuscript. They should not be incorporated on the body of the manuscript.

ILLUSTRATIONS AND FIGURES

The journal only accepts figures in JPEG format with a size of 1024 kb.
The figures should be numbered in accordance with their appearance in the manuscript.
Labels, numbers, and symbols must be written clearly and of the same size.
Symbols, arrows, or letters used in the photomicrographs must be in contrast with the background and clearly marked with transfer type or by tissue overlay and not by pen.
Titles and detailed descriptions must be written in the legends for illustrations.
When graphs, scatter-grams, or histograms are presented, the numerical data where they are derived must be added.
The images and figures must be cropped appropriately, andthe necessary parts must be deleted.
Consent must accompany a picture of a person or persons if used in the paper.
Figures that are previously published must be accompanied by permission to use and reproduce from the original author/s and must be referenced accordingly if used in the manuscript.
JMAHS has the right to edit any submitted illustrations or figures in accordance with the requirements and layout of the journal.

SUBMISSION

The authors are requested to submit the articles through online manuscript management system ‘author-gate’ at https://author-gate.com/login

ARTICLE PROCESSING CHRAGES

JMAHS is an open access journal, publishing free of charge.