Submissions

Author Guidelines

About the Journal

The Europasian Journal of Medical Sciences (EJMS) is an Indexed, Peer-Reviewed, International Medical Journal, with a primary objective of promoting the publication of quality research along with other writings of sound academic quest in the field of Medical and Allied Health Sciences. The journal is an official publication of Nirvana Psychosocial Care Center & Research Institute, which was established in 2016 AD. The Nirvana Psychosocial Care Center & Research Institute was established to provide mental health services, and research publications in multidisciplinary domains of medicine and health sciences.

EJMS is an open-access, multidisciplinary, and biannually published journal with pISSN (2717-4646), eISSN (2717-4654), and DOI (10.46405/ejms). The journal's full text is available online at www.europasianjournals.org. The journal allows free access (Open Access) on its contents and permits authors to self-archive the final accepted version of the articles. We are proud to have a pool of proficiently acknowledged international and national advisors, editors and reviewers from different continents that assist and facilitate the publication of quality articles which reflect a global representation of lead studies in medical sciences.

Abstracting and Indexing Information

Currently the journal is registered with the following esteemed abstracting partners: Google Scholar, Nepal Medline (NepMed), CrossRef, JournalTocs, Schematic Scholar, Publons, and Index Copernicus, respectively. We are in the process of growing our presence with additional valued abstracting partners.

Aime and Scope of the Journal

The EJMS aims at publishing innovative researches that significantly contribute to the scientific knowledge in all fields of medical and allied health sciences. Its scope includes Internal Medicine, Surgery, Pediatrics, Gynecology, Obstetrics, Anesthesiology, Psychiatry Psychology, Dermatology, Dentistry, Anatomy, Physiology, Pathology, Microbiology, Pharmacology, Physiology, Pharmacy, Nursing, Community Medicine, Public Health, and alternative and complementary medicine.

We accept manuscripts from all field of medical and allied health sciences in the form of Original Research Articles; Review Articles, Short Communications; Clinical Experiences; Case Reports; Letters to the Editor, Perspective, Book Review, Methods, and Commentaries.

Journal Ethics & Ethical Guidelines

We are unconditionally committed to meeting and upholding standards of ethical behavior at all stages of the publication process. We closely follow the industry associations, such as the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), and World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), that set standards and provide guidelines for best practices in order to meet these requirements. Any research that involves humans in any stage of the work must be conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki (1964). Manuscripts describing experimental work which carries a risk of harm to human subjects must include a statement that the experiment was conducted with the human subjects’ understanding and consent, as well as a statement that the responsible Ethical Committee has approved the research methodology. In the case of any animal experiments, the authors must provide a full description of any anesthetic or surgical procedure used, as well as evidence that all possible steps were taken to avoid animal suffering at each stage of the experiment. All animal research must follow the ARRIVE guidelines.

The ethical approval letter is mandatory for original research article. The ethics approval statement is mandatory in the original paper. If needed, the journal editorial board may request a copy of the ethics approval. A statement of ethical approval must be included in the methods section of the manuscript, including the name of the body from which approval has been received with a reference number. The ethics statement also should include information on how the consent from the participant was obtained. For all articles that include information or clinical photographs relating to individual patients, written and signed informed consent from each patient, to publish it, must also be made available if requested by the editorial board. The involvement of scientific (medical) writers or anyone else, who has assisted in the preparation of the manuscript content, should be duly acknowledged, along with their source of funding. EJMS requires authors to declare any competing financial or other interests in relation to their work. All competing interests that are declared will be listed at the end of published articles. Where an author provides no competing interests, the listing will read the author(s) declare that they have no competing interests’.

Reporting Guidelines

EJMS encourages all the authors to maximize transparency and reproducibility of their research by using appropriate reporting guidelines while preparing their manuscripts. Our reviewers and editors are also encouraged to use them during the article processing and peer-review processes as well. We particularly encourage the use of following guidelines:

• CONSORT guidelines for Randomized Controlled Trials
• TREND guidelines for non-randomized trials
• PRISMA guidelines for systematic review and meta-analyses
• CARE guidelines for case reports
• STROBE guidelines for observational studies
• STREGA guidelines for genetic association studies
• SRQR guidelines for qualitative studies
• STARD guidelines for diagnostic accuracy studies
• ARRIVE guidelines for animal experiments

Copyright and Licensing

All articles published in EJMS are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-by 4.0). Under the CC BY 4.0 license, author(s) retain the ownership of the copyrights for their content, and allow others to copy, use, print, share, modify, and distribute the content of the article even in commercial purpose as long as the original authors and the journal are properly cited. No permission is required from the author/s or the publishers. Appropriate attribution can be provided by simply citing the original article.

The author/s as the copyright holder will retain copyright, however, ought to grant the sole and exclusive rights and license- according to the full legal term of copyright- to the publisher to publish and distribute the article even for commercial purposes by signing on the “Copyright Transfer Agreement Form. The copyright agreement form can be downloaded from the Download section of the journal’s website. Uploading the signed copy of “Copyright Transfer Agreement Form” is a mandatory step in the process of manuscript submission.

On behalf of all the authors, the corresponding author is responsible for completing and returning the agreement form to the editorial office. More information about the terms and conditions, privacy policies, and copyrights can be found on the webpage of the Creative Commons license privacy policy.

Conflict of Interest (COI)

The authors of all manuscripts submitted for the possible publication in EJMS should disclose any sort of conflict of Interests relevant in financial interests, activities, relationships, and affiliations including, but not limited to, employment, affiliation, funding and grants received or pending, consultancies, honoraria or payment, speakers' bureaus, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, royalties, donation of medical equipment; or patents planned or pending are issued. As stipulated in the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) disclosure form, these disclosures should include “Any potential conflicts of interest involving the work under consideration for publication”, any “relevant financial activities outside the submitted work” (over the 3 years prior to submission), and any “other relationships or activities that readers could perceive to have influenced, or that give the appearance of potentially influencing” what is written in the submitted work. In case of any conflict of interest among the authors, reviewers and editors, the EJMS editorial team will follow the COPE’s guidelines for handling such conflict of interest before or after publication.

FAQs for Authors and Reviewers

EJMS has a list of some FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) from the authors and reviewers and their answers so that the online manuscript submission, revision and review process will be easy for both authors and reviewers. For more information regarding the FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions), click here FAQs

Peer-Review Process

All types of manuscripts (except editorials) submitted to the EJMS will be subjected to 2-3 rounds of peer-review from 2-4 experts who are not the part of the editorial board, in the field of the submitted manuscript. EJMS follows the double-blind peer-review process where the identity of author is kept anonymous from the editor and the identity of reviewer is kept confidential from the author. It is adopted so to avoid any personal bias and to ensure the standard of quality required for the article before acceptance for publication. We make every effort to reach an initial decision within two to four weeks of submission, depending on the type and clarity of research work, research methodology used, availability of reviewer etc.

Authorship Criteria

EJMS follows the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) guidelines for authorship. The credit of authorship should be based only on substantial contributions to each of the following components of the manuscript submitted:

1. Concept and design of study conducted;
2. Acquisition of data or analysis and interpretation of data;
3. Drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content;
4. Final approval of the version to be published.

Participation only in the acquisition of funding or the collection of data does not justify the authorship. General supervision of the research group is not sufficient; contributors should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content of the manuscript. The order is based on the relative contribution of the contributor towards the study and writing of the manuscript. Once submitted, an author cannot be added, and their order cannot be changed. An exception may be made in the case of missing co-author or re-ordering of the co-authors, if the corresponding authors should provide a dependable and convincing justification to the editor-in-chief via email (editor@europasianjournals.org).

Identification and Dealing with Research Misconduct

The editorial board of the EJMS is aware of various types of research misconducts including plagiarism, citation manipulation, and data falsification/fabrication or data doctoring as well. To discourage such research misconducts, we will screen, scan, and cross-verify each manuscript manually and with the help of software as well. In case of any research misconduct/s, the editorial board of EJMS will follow the COPE’s guidelines in dealing with the allegations of misconducts.

Policy of EJMS for any Sort of Research Misconducts:
The editorial board of the Europasian Journal of Medical Sciences (EJMS) won’t accept any manuscript with plagiarism in any form. We have established the following policy stating specific actions (penalties) when any sort of research misconducts is identified in an article that is submitted for the publication in the EJMS. Every manuscript submitted to the EJMS must be fully original, unpublished, and not even in pipeline or pending for the publication in any other journal/s.

Plagiarism Policy
Plagiarism is an act of copying someone's theories, ideas, or statements without giving explicit acknowledgement to the author of the original source. It is assumed as an absolutely unethical affair and serious abuse in scientific writing. Any text with someone's views, ideas and findings should be explicitly acknowledged; and any photograph, figure and graphic material reproduced from another source should be presented with permission from the person or copyright holder. The editorial board of the EJMS won’t accept any manuscript with plagiarism in any form. We have established the following policy stating specific actions (penalties) when plagiarism is identified in any manuscript that is submitted for the possible publication in the EJMS.

Identification of Plagiarism and Penalties
EJMS has owned iThenticate Plagiarism Checking Software powered by Turnitin for checking possible plagiarism of all submitted manuscripts. On the basis of extent of the similarity index (plagiarism), the editorial team will decide whether to accept the manuscript and proceed for the further peer-review process or reject the manuscript from the editorial desk. Once the plagiarism is identified, the Section Editor will alert the author/s with its future consequences, and ask for revisions to the manuscript converting the plagiarized content to be made. If the authors do not correct noted plagiarized material, then the editorial board will take action on the basis of the degree of plagiarism under the following guidelines.

1. Plagiarism Offense Type I (Minor Offense): If some portion (less than two complete paragraphs or less than 15% of the total content) of any article is plagiarized without significant data or idea, then it is assumed to be a minor plagiarism offence.
   Penalties: The last warning with the possibilities of penalties of type II and type III offence is given to the author(s) and will be asked to resubmit the manuscript after rewriting the plagiarized contents of the manuscript with proper citation of the original article.
2. Plagiarism Offense Type II (Intermediate Offense): If a significant portion (more than two complete paragraphs or less than 25% of the total content) of any article is plagiarized without significant data or idea, then it is assumed to be an intermediate plagiarism offence.
   Penalties: The submitted article is rejected and the author(s) is/are not allowed for resubmission or new submission of the manuscript at least for one year.
3. Plagiarism Offense Type III (Severe Offense): If a significant portion (more than 25% of the total content) of any article is plagiarized without significant data or idea, then it is assumed to be a severe plagiarism offence.
   Penalties: The paper is rejected and the author(s) is/are kept in blacklist for 3 to 10 years of time depending on the severity of the plagiarism.

APC (Article Processing Charge)

The Europasian Journal of Medical Sciences (EJMS) does not charge APC (Article Processing Charge) for the initial submission, review and publication of the manuscript both in Online as well as Print version.

Types of Manuscript

Original Research Article
Good quality original studies related to the medical sciences are considered in this category. It should be based on the findings of research where the researchers ground the studies on the preset hypothesis to answer the research questions.

• Word Count: 3500 – 4000 (Including Abstract, tables and References)
• References: 20-40
• Main Text: IMRaD format along with Conclusion
• Click to Download to view the details of how to write Original Research Article

[Click to download Covering Letter, and Copyright & Contributor’s Form and Template]

Review Article
The review articles survey and summarize the currently published studies on any topic then present a current comprehensive understanding of the topic. Unlike original articles, they do not report any new experimental test results.

There are two types of reviews: Narrative review and Systematic review (with or without meta-analysis).

A. Narrative Review: Is an in-depth review of literature in a specific topic. Authors should preferably be working in and have published papers in their area of expertise to critically evaluate the relevant literature. Appropriate use of tables and figures is encouraged. Where relevant, key messages and salient articles are usually solicited by the Journal, but unsolicited material will also be considered.

• Word Count: 4000-5000 (Including Abstract and References)
• References: 50-60 (Depending upon the availability of materials to be reviewed, the number of references can be considered)
• Main Text: Structured with specific headings and subheading relevant to the topic

B. Systematic Review (with or without Meta-analysis): Systematic review and meta-analysis uses clear-cut systematic methods with a view to minimize bias then provides critical review of the literature to furnish reliable findings from which conclusions can be drawn. Informed decisions can then be made on particular case. This is done after in-depth, critical, and systematic analysis of all existing literature on the topic are completed and hence considered to be at the highest tier of hierarchy among research papers. It is expected that these articles would be written by individuals who have done substantial work on the subject and experts in the field. The contributor(s) should accompany the PRISMA guidelines while writing the manuscript.

• Word Count: 6000-7000 (Including Abstract and References)
• References: 50-60 (Depending upon the availability of materials to be reviewed, the number of references can be considered)
• Main Text: IMRD format along with Conclusion.

 [Click to download Covering Letter, and Copyright & Contributor’s Form]

Short Communication
Short Communication is a short research article that provides brief reports of data from original research and significant material for rapid dissemination. Such papers focus on a particular aspect of a problem or a new finding that is expected to have a significant impact and possibly stimulate further research in the related field.

• Word Count: 2500-3000
• References: Up to 30
• Main Text: IMRD format along with Conclusion.

Case Report/Series
New, interesting, and rare cases can be reported as case report or series. These should be unique and ought to describe a great diagnostic or therapeutic challenge providing an insight over leading clinical significance or implications.

• Word Count: 1500-2000
• References: 10-15
• Case reports are prepared as per CARE guidelines.

Viewpoints
Viewpoints are personal opinions focused on authors’ perspective to provide views on the key challenges or issues in the scientific field.

• Word Count: 2000-2500
• References: 5-10
• Main Text: Structured with specific headings and subheading relevant to the topic

Commentary
Commentary provides a critical review on a current or key issue. Such articles are narrowly focused and provide discernment into an important development of interest in the scientific field. There should be no abstract, headings and sub headings in such article.

• Word Count: 1500
• References: 10-15

Letter to the Editor
A letter to the editor provides a means of communication between the author of an article and the reader of a journal, allowing continued dialogue about journal content to take place. They might present argument or agreement with any published paper in the journal and thereby provide new insight, make corrections, offer alternate theories, or request clarification about content printed in the journal.

• Word Count: 1500
• References: 5-10

Editorial
These are usually solicited but unsolicited material may also be considered if demanded. There should be no abstract, headings and sub-headings, table, and figures in editorial.

• Word Count: 1000-1200
• References: 5

Manuscript Submission

All manuscripts fitting into any of the above categories are to be submitted via the on-line system through the website https://www.europasianjournals.org/index.php/europasian/index. First time users have to Register on the website of the journal.

Registered authors can assess the progress track of their articles after logging into the website using their username and password. After registration to the webpage, you must log into it and Click on “Make a Submission” on the right side just below the Image of the Journal Front page. Then a new page with a submission Check List will be open. At the top of this page, you will find a new link “Make a New Submission” – click on it to submit your manuscript. If a technical problem occurs, you can email your manuscript to editor@europasianjournals.org or dr.kapilamgain@gmail.com

A submitted manuscript that is not as per the “Author Guidelines'' could be rejected or would be returned to the author(s) for technical correction before undergoing peer-review. The following three documents should be prepared before submitting the manuscript via online.

1. Cover letter:
The cover letter should be formatted as per the provided format of the journal. It can be downloaded from the Download section of the website of EJMS. [Click to download the format of Covering Letter of EJMS

2. Copyright and Contributor’s Form:
The copyright and contributor’s form should be formatted as per the provided format of the journal. It can be downloaded from the Download section of the website of EJMS. [Click to download Copyright & Contributor’s Form]

3. Manuscript file:
The manuscript file should be formatted as per the provided format of the journal. It can be downloaded from the Download section of the website of EJMS. [Click to view the Template of Manuscript]. The MS word file of the manuscript should contain; Title, Author’s full name, Author Affiliations, Abstract, Main text (along with tables/figures), and References.

Formatting Guidelines

Presentation and Format

• Double spacing.
• Margins 2.5 cm from all four sides.
• Page numbers included at bottom
• Headings in TITLE Case (Not all capitals) and BOLD.
• Main text should be in Times New Roman font with 12 Font size.
• The references cited in the text should be in superscript before full stop without any bracket.

Language and grammar

• Spelling should be US English or British English, but consistency throughout the manuscript must be maintained.
• Write the full form for each abbreviation at its first use in the title, abstract, keywords and text separately unless it is a standard unit of measurement.
• Numerals at the beginning of the sentence should be spelt out.
• Italics should be used for the name of species. Do not underline any text.
• Grammar should be correct. Manuscripts with serious flaws in grammar and typology could be rejected even before undergoing peer review.

Tables and figures

• Only relevant figures and tables (not more than 5 each) should be used in the manuscript.
• Redundancy should be avoided as much as possible in context of table, and figures
• Tables, figures and numbers should be in Arabic letters (not Roman).
• Tables, figures and numbers should be followed by a colon, a space and the title. For example Table 1: Age-wise distribution of diseases.
• Tables and figures should be cited in the text as well within large brackets. For example: Facebook was the most commonly used social media among participants [Table 1].
• All figures/images should be of high quality (Pixels: more than 300 DPI) and should be cited in text in consecutive numerical order.
• Credit note should be provided after proper citation in Vancouver style for every borrowed figure/table.#
• Write the full form for each abbreviation used in the table as a footnote.

How to do Citation?

In text citation should be done according to the modified Vancouver style, where the superscript number should be used without bracket. As for example;

As emphasized by Watkins² careers of diabetes sufferers ‘require perseverance and an understanding of humanity’.

For more detail, click to view [How to do Citation]

How to Prepare References

We are adopting the Citing Medicine for the citation as well as referencing with a slight modification of Vancouver style as advocated by National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) and U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM). [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK7256/. One example of Journal article referencing is shown below.

Sharma D, Amgain K, Panta PP, Pokhrel B. Hemoglobin levels and anemia evaluation among pregnant women in the remote and rural high lands of mid-western Nepal: a hospital based study. BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth. 2020; 20(1):1-7. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12884-020-02870-7. Google Scholar | PubMed | PMC | Full Text

For the further information on how to prepare the References List for the Journal, click to [View]

Checklist for Manuscript Submission

Before making online submission of the manuscript, authors must check that following documents are ready to be submitted:

• Cover letter (Click to Download Template)
• Copyright & Contributor’s Form (Click to Download Template)
• Manuscript – in MS word format [tables and figures should be included] (Click to view the template View)
• Ethics approval letter from respective ethical board (For original articles and case reports)
• Patient consent/assent form (if applicable)
• Supplementary files: The research tools/ instrument, questionnaires, high quality photographs/figures can be submitted separately as supplementary files.

Editorial Board
Europasian Journal of Medical Sciences (EJMS)