For Authors

Manuscript Submission

State the type of manuscript in your cover letter — review article, systematic review/meta-analysis, original article, short report, case report, editorial, or letter to the editor. All manuscripts must be accompanied by a covering letter from the corresponding author.

• JPSIM verifies that any human and/or animal studies followed the regulations of the authors’ institution(s) and generally accepted guidelines governing such work.
• All financial or other relationships that could be construed as a conflict of interest, and all sources of financial support, must be disclosed and acknowledged. This statement must be signed by all co-authors.
• All authors must fulfil the ICMJE authorship criteria and clearly define their individual roles during online submission: (1) substantial contribution to conception, design, acquisition, analysis or interpretation of the work; (2) drafting or critically revising the manuscript; (3) final approval of the version to be published; and (4) accountability for all aspects of the work.
• Prior publication of any part of the work must be acknowledged, with appropriate written permission included.

Review Procedure

Submitted manuscripts are reviewed for originality, significance, adequacy of documentation, reader interest and composition. Every manuscript goes through the internationally recommended peer review process, beginning with an initial assessment by the Editorial Staff, who check:

• Appropriateness of the article to the journal’s research scope and the technical quality of the research presented.
• References, format, language, spelling and grammar — correcting these is the author’s responsibility. Raw data may be requested to verify originality, and authorship information may be checked.
• Similarity index using Turnitin software — a similarity index below 15% is the eligibility criterion to proceed to preliminary review.

Manuscripts that pass initial assessment go to double-blind peer review by at least two reviewers (one from the subject specialty, one preferably from a research background); per HEC guidelines, both national and international reviewers may be used. After receiving reviewer comments, the Editor/Editor-in-Chief reaches one of the following decisions:

• Accept, with or without editorial revisions.
• Invite the authors to revise the manuscript as suggested by the reviewers before a final decision.
• Reject, indicating that further work may justify resubmission.
• Reject outright, for reasons such as lack of novelty, insufficient conceptual advance, or major technical/interpretation problems.

All accepted manuscripts are subject to editing for scientific accuracy and clarity by the Editor’s office.

Format Requirements

General Requirements

The manuscript must be written in English; where there is doubt, authors should seek the assistance of an experienced English-speaking medical editor, who should also review the final draft and any revision. Type on one side of the paper only, double-spaced throughout, with margins of at least 1.5 inches (4 cm). Begin each of the following sections on a separate page, in this order: title page, abstract, introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion, acknowledgements, references, and tables/figures (each on its own page) with legends. Number pages consecutively from the title page, with the page number in the upper right-hand corner.

Title Page

The title page must include: (1) a concise, informative title (under 200 characters); (2) the complete byline — first name, middle initial and last name of each author, up to six authors; (3) the complete affiliation of each author, including department(s) and institution(s); (4) any disclaimer; and (5) the name, address and telephone number of the corresponding author.

Abstract

Provide, on a separate page, an abstract of no more than 250 words. A structured abstract has five sections — Objectives, Methods, Results, Conclusion and Keywords — briefly describing the problem addressed, how the study was performed, the salient results, and the authors’ conclusions.

Introduction

State the purpose of the article and summarise the rationale for the study or observation. Give only strictly pertinent references (6–10) and do not include data or conclusions from the work being reported.

Methods

Clearly describe the selection of observational or experimental subjects (patients or laboratory animals, including controls), identifying age, sex and other important characteristics. Identify methods, apparatus (manufacturer’s name and address in parenthesis) and procedures in enough detail for others to reproduce the results; give references for established methods, describe new or modified methods and their limitations, and identify precisely all drugs and chemicals used (generic names, doses, routes of administration).

Reports of randomised clinical trials should present the protocol (study population, interventions/exposures, outcomes, rationale for statistical analysis), assignment of interventions (randomisation, concealment of allocation) and the method of masking/blinding. JPSIM prefers systematic reviews/meta-analyses over formal review articles; these must follow PRISMA guidelines, and methods should be summarised in the abstract in no more than 200 words.

Key Words

Include key words relating to the article subject, as abbreviated in Index Medicus.

Ethics

When reporting experiments on human subjects, indicate whether procedures followed the Declaration of Helsinki (1975, revised 1983). Do not use patients’ names, initials or hospital numbers, especially in illustrative material. When reporting experiments on animals, indicate whether an institutional or national research council’s guide, or any national law on the care and use of laboratory animals, was followed.

Statistics

Describe statistical methods in enough detail for a knowledgeable reader with access to the original data to verify the reported results. Quantify findings where possible and present them with appropriate indicators of measurement error or uncertainty (e.g. confidence intervals), rather than relying solely on P values. Discuss eligibility of experimental subjects, randomisation, blinding, complications of treatment, numbers of observations, and losses to observation. Reference the design and statistical methods to standard works where possible, and specify any general-purpose computer programs used. Define statistical terms, abbreviations and symbols, and avoid non-technical use of technical terms such as “random,” “normal,” “significant,” “correlations” and “samples.”

Results

Present results in logical sequence in text, tables and illustrations; do not repeat in the text all data given in tables or illustrations — emphasise or summarise only the important observations.

Discussion

Emphasise the new and important aspects of the study and the conclusions that follow from them, without repeating data already given in the introduction or results. Include the implications of the findings and their limitations, including implications for future research, and relate the observations to other relevant studies. Link conclusions to the study’s goals, avoid unqualified statements not fully supported by the data, avoid claiming priority or alluding to incomplete work, and clearly label any new hypotheses as such.

Acknowledgements

People who contributed intellectually but whose contribution does not justify authorship may be named, with their function described (e.g. “scientific advisor,” “critical review of study proposal,” “data collection”). Written permission must be obtained from everyone named, since readers may infer their endorsement of the data and conclusions. Acknowledge technical help in a paragraph separate from other contributions.

References

Cite references in consecutive numerical order as first mentioned in the text, designated by superscript reference numbers; references in a table or figure are numbered sequentially with those in the text. The accuracy and integrity of cited references are the sole responsibility of the authors — all references must strictly follow the citation and formatting rules below, and inaccuracies may delay review and publication. JPSIM follows Vancouver / Index Medicus style, with journal names abbreviated per the list of journals indexed in Index Medicus. “Unpublished observations” and “personal communications” should not be used as references (written, not verbal, communications may be noted in the text); references cited as “in press” must already be accepted.

Reference Examples

Journal article (list the first six authors, then et al.):

Waqar SN, Hussain H, Khan R, Khawaja A, Majid H, Malik S, et al. Intestinal parasitic infections in children from Northern Pakistan. Infect Dis J. 2003;12(3):73–7.

Online article without full print information — give the DOI after the year:

Page MJ, McKenzie JE, Bossuyt PM, Boutron I, Hoffmann TC, Mulrow CD, et al. The PRISMA 2020 statement: an updated guideline for reporting systematic reviews. BMJ Syst Rev. 2021; doi: 10.1186/s13643-021-01626-4.

Book chapter:

DeGroot LJ. Evaluation of thyroid function and thyroid disease. In: DeGroot L, Stanbury JB, eds. The Thyroid and Its Diseases. 4th ed. New York: Wiley, 1975, pp 196–248.

Conference proceedings:

Kimura J, Shibasaki H, editors. Recent Advances in Clinical Neurophysiology. Proceedings of the 10th International Congress of EMG and Clinical Neurophysiology, 1995 Oct 15–19, Kyoto, Japan. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1996.

Dissertation:

Kaplan SJ. Post-hospital home health care: the elderly’s access and utilization [dissertation]. St. Louis (MO): Washington Univ., 1995.

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.

Abbreviations & Drug Names

Except for units of measurement, the journal discourages abbreviations; when one is used it should first be preceded by the full word or name. Generic drug names should generally be used — where a proprietary brand is used in the research, include the brand name in parentheses in the Methods section.

Tables & Illustrations

Tables

Type each table double-spaced on a separate page; do not submit tables as photographs. Tables should be self-explanatory and supplement, not duplicate, the text, cited in consecutive numerical order and numbered with an Arabic numeral following the word “Table.” Give each column a short heading, use no vertical rules, and place explanatory matter in footnotes (symbol sequence *, †, ‡, #, **), expanding any non-standard abbreviation. If data are drawn from a published or unpublished source, obtain written permission and acknowledge it fully.

Illustrations

Illustrations should clarify and augment the text; only sharp, high-quality images are accepted. Submit two complete sets of glossy illustrations, no smaller than 3½×5 inches nor larger than 8×10 inches — do not send original artwork. Each illustration must be numbered and cited in consecutive order in the text, and identified on a label on the back giving the figure number, part (if any) and orientation. All submitted illustrations become the property of JPSIM and are not returned unless the manuscript is rejected.

Legends for illustrations should be concise, not repeat the text, and be typed double-spaced on a separate page, with each figure cited in consecutive numerical order and letters (A, B, C…) used and explained for parts of a figure. Previously published illustrations require the author to obtain written permission to reprint, cite the original source in the references, and include the credit line “(Reprinted by permission of Ref. X)” in the legend; all permission releases must be submitted to the Editor with the manuscript.

Submission Types & Limits

• Editorials — usually commissioned, but unsolicited editorials of about 1,000 words are welcome and externally peer reviewed.
• Original Article — maximum 3,500 words excluding title page and structured abstract, with no more than three tables, three figures and 25 references.
• Review Article / Systematic Review / Meta-analysis — maximum 4,500 words excluding title page and abstract, with no more than 35 references.
• Short Reports — maximum 2,000 words excluding title page; abstract, short introduction, patients, methods and results together, followed by discussion; no more than two tables, two figures and 10 references.
• Case Report — maximum 2,000 words; abstract, short introduction, case report, then discussion; no more than two tables, two figures and 10 references.
• Letters to the Editor — maximum 400 words, no more than five references and one figure/table, signed by no more than three authors. Letters referring to a recent journal article must be received within four weeks of its publication.
• Reflections — based on true stories of patients or medical professionals, 1,500–2,000 words.

At a Glance

Required Documents

Letter of Authorship

Every manuscript must be submitted together with a “Letter of Authorship” form, signed in original by all authors. No article is processed without it.

EC/IRB Approval Letter

An Ethics Committee / Institutional Review Board approval letter is essential with every submission — no paper can be published without it.

Article Processing Charges

Only original articles require a deposit of Rs 5,000 (five thousand Pakistani rupees) as a submission charge and Rs 15,000 (fifteen thousand Pakistani rupees) as a processing charge. Contact the editorial office for current bank deposit details and further instructions.

Privacy Statement

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