Instructions to Authors

Prior to submission, authors are requested to visit our website (https://smj.org.sa) where the full instructions and guidelines for authors, together with the Uniform Requirements and submission checklists can be found. Manuscripts that do not conform to the Instructions to Authors maybe subject to delay.

The Saudi Medical Journal is an open access, peer-reviewed, monthly publication. Authors are invited to submit for publication, articles with a wide spectrum of coverage reporting original work, epidemiology, public health, indigenous disease and standards of health care from all parts of the globe. Basic research with clear clinical implications will also be considered. Review articles of current interest and high standard are welcomed for consideration. Prospective work should not be backdated. There are also sections for Systematic Review, Case Series, Case Reports, Brief Communication, Brief Report, Clinical Note, Correspondence, Student Corner, and medical news items. To promote continuous education, training, and learning, we include Clinical Images. All submissions must conform to the Uniform Requirements.

Saudi Medical Journal is copyright under the Berne Convention and the International Copyright Convention. All rights reserved. Saudi Medical Journal is an Open Access journal and will not charge readers, or their institutions for access. From the Budapest Open Access initiative (BOAI) definition of open access, the reader has the right to “read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full text of the articles”. Articles published in Saudi Medical Journal are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (CC BY-NC). Readers may copy, distribute, display, and perform the work, and make derivative works based on it for non-commercial purposes with the proper citation of the original work. Please note, however, if an article contains a figure from another source that is protected by copyright, our current Creative Commons license does not cover this figure, and hence republication is not allowed without seeking permission from the original source of publication.

Submission of Manuscripts:

Manuscripts, or the essence of their content, must be previously unpublished and should not be under simultaneous consideration by another journal. The authors should also declare if any similar work has been submitted to or published by another journal. They should also declare that it has not been submitted/published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, without the written consent of the Publisher.

If any article is already made publicly available on an institute website or repository, this will not affect our decision to publish, but we do need to know this. Failure to disclose this is unethical. Following publication the author should update the repository and include a citation to the published work.

The authors should also declare that the paper is the original work of the author(s) and not copied (in whole or in part) from any other work. All papers will be automatically checked for duplicate publication and plagiarism. If detected, appropriate action will be taken in accordance with International Ethical Guidelines. All Tables and Figures must be original and not adapted from other work unless specified and with the appropriate references and copyright permission. By virtue of the submitted manuscript, the corresponding author acknowledges that all the co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the manuscript. The corresponding author should provide all co-authors with information regarding the manuscript, and obtain their approval before submitting any revisions. Participation solely in the acquisition of funding or the collection of data does not justify authorship. Manuscripts are only accepted for publication on the understanding that the authors will permit editorial amendments, though proofs will always be submitted to the corresponding author before being sent finally to press. Authors are required to pay a non-refundable submission fee of US$10, which helps support the journal operation. Payment of fees can be made by bank transfer, or online payment through our website. Processing fees will be required once paper is finally accepted for publication. The authors should be able to provide upon request the raw material of any study or the quality assurance assessment of any study under publication. To avoid any delay in processing manuscripts, prior to submission, all authors should refer to the appropriate checklists according to the type of the manuscript and comply with their guidelines:

Clinical Practice Guideline should follow the AGREE II instrument and submitted with the AGREE Reporting Checklist. It must include a short abstract. There should be an Introduction section addressing the objective in producing the guideline, what the guideline is about and who will benefit from the guideline. It should describe the population, conditions, health care setting and clinical management/diagnostic test. Authors should adequately describe the methods used to collect and analyze evidence, recommendations and validation. If it is adapted, authors should include the source, how, and why it is adapted? The guidelines should include not more than 50 references, 2-4 illustrations/tables, and an algorithm.

A Systematic Review Protocol is a planned methodology of the systematic review. Protocol should be registered in PROSPERO registry. Author must disclose ethical approval and funding from recognized body. Funded studies will be peer reviewed by the assigned editor while non-funded research will undergo external peer review. Author should refer to the PRISMA-P Checklist to facilitate the reporting of Systematic Review Protocol.

Student Corner must contain an abstract of not more than 300 words with a descriptive title. The typical headings: Objectives, Methods, Results, and Conclusion. Submitted abstracts should be co-authored by a Senior Supervisor.

Prior to the initial submission of a new manuscript, please carefully consider that all authors names are included as no change to authors details will be permitted after the initial submission.

Ethical standards:

Saudi Medical Journal is committed to upholding the highest standards of research, editorial, and publication ethics, and follows international guidelines, procedures, and policies (e.g. Committee of Publication Ethics [COPE], and Office of Research Integrity [ORI]) when dealing with any cases of suspected ethical misconduct. If such cases arise, the journal may share relevant information with necessary third parties (for example, authors’ institutes). All information will be treated in a confidential, factual, and non-judgmental manner. Saudi Medical Journal will also retain the right to pursue any issues of ethical misconduct even after rejection or withdrawal of a manuscript from the journal.

Withdrawal policy:

By submission, the author grants the journal right of first publication. Therefore, the journal discourages unethical withdrawal of manuscript from the publication process after peer review. The corresponding author should send a formal request signed by all co-authors stating the reason for withdrawing the manuscript. Withdrawal of manuscript is only considered valid when the editor accepts, or approves the reason to withdraw the manuscript from publication. Subsequently, the author must receive a confirmation from the editorial office. Only at that stage, authors are free to submit the manuscript elsewhere.

No response from the authors to all journal communication after review and acceptance is also considered unethical withdrawal. Withdrawn manuscripts noted to have already been submitted or published in another journal will be subjected to sanctions in accordance with the journal policy. The journal will take disciplinary measures for unacceptable withdrawal of manuscripts. An embargo of 5 years will be enforced for the author and their co-authors, and their institute will be notified of this action.

Electronic submission of Manuscripts:

Manuscripts can now be submitted electronically via the journals website (https://smj.org.sa) by clicking Submit manuscript and registering to the website. After registration, you may be able to submit your manuscript by signing in using your username and password.

Figures and Illustrations should be provided in jpeg format (resolution 300 DPI). Titles and detailed explanations belong in the legends for illustrations (on a separate sheet), not on the illustrations themselves. Upon acceptance of the manuscript for publication, authors are required to provide the original copy of the assignment of copyright dully signed by all authors.

Manuscript Preparation:

Manuscripts including tables, references and figure legends, must be typewritten on 8 1/2 x 11 inch (21.5 x 28 cm) or size A4 paper, with margins of at least 1 inch (2.5 cm). Pages should be numbered consecutively, beginning with the title page and continuing through the last page of typewritten material. Manuscripts must be accompanied by a covering letter signed by the author and all co-authors. All Case Reports must include at least one figure.

The journal recommends that authors should consider having their manuscripts professionally edited prior to submission; even more so for authors for whom English is a second language. There are many editing services available that can help the authors improve the scientific and grammatical writing of their manuscripts. However, language editing does not guarantee processing and publication and any costs incurred are the sole responsibility of the author.

Word Limits:

Review and Original articles should be no longer than 4000 words (excluding abstract and references). Review articles may include up to 100 references, and Original articles may include up to 40 references. Articles may include a maximum of 6 tables and/or figures in total.

Arabic Text:

An Arabic translation must be submitted for: (1) title of the article, (2) each authors’ name and affiliation, and (3) abstracts.

Title Page:

The title page must contain (1) title of the article in Arabic and English, (2) correct first name, middle initial and family name of each author plus highest degrees, not more than 2, in that specific order (3) Arabic translation for all authors names (4) any disclaimers, and (5) a short running title of no more than 40 characters (count letters and spaces). The second page should include in English and Arabic (1) name and address of the department(s) and institution(s) from where the research was carried out for each author; affiliation address should be a record of where an author is currently working. If the study was previously carried out at another institute this should appears as “formerly of ….” (2) current position and affiliation address for the corresponding author and (3) first name, address, telephone number, fax number and e-mail address of author to whom correspondence should be sent if it differs from the first author. Review articles should consist of one or 2 authors, only Clinical Review or Meta-analysis may include multiple authors. Case Reports should preferably not exceed 4 authors.

Abstracts:

Abstracts in Arabic and English for Review articles and Case reports should be unstructured of not more than 150 words. All original articles must contain a structured abstract of not more than 230 words and a structured Arabic abstract should also be provided. The following are typical headings: Objectives (background), Methods (settings, design), including where and when the study took place, Results, Conclusion.

Authors should write their Arabic summaries using terms according to the Unified Medical Dictionary (Council of Arab Ministers of Health/WHO/Arab Medical Union ALESCO, 3rd ed).

Introduction:

The introductory section of Case Reports should always include the objective and reason why the author is presenting this case.

Methods:

In studies of diagnostic accuracy, the methods section should include the inclusion and exclusion criteria of patients involved in the study together with information on patient recruitment. Textual re-use of portions of an authors previous work in the methods section will be considered, providing that an explanatory note is included with appropriate referencing: “The methods are exactly as published in the previous publication….”

Statistical Analysis:

The author(s) should adequately describe or reference all statistical procedures used in a paragraph at the end of the methods section. It is expected that the statistical tests used are appropriately selected and applied, with an indication of the related assumptions and how they have been tested. The ambiguous use of statistical terms should be avoided such as random with the meaning of haphazard, correlation instead of association, etc. In presenting results, all the participants in the study must be accounted for. Exact p-values and confidence intervals are to be used. The results of bivariate analyses should not be presented in tables when multivariate analysis is used. Standard guidelines must be used in reporting the results of clinical trials, studies assessing diagnostic tests, etc. The statistical software package used must be specified and properly referenced. For more details, refer to statistical guidelines and checklist section on the journal website.

Tables:

Tables should be double spaced on a separate sheet of paper. Do not submit tables as photographs. Number tables consecutively in the order of their first citation in the text and supply a brief “stand-alone” title for each. Give each column a short or abbreviated heading. Place explanatory matter in footnotes, not in the heading. Explain in footnotes all non-standard abbreviations that are used in each table. For footnotes use the following symbols, in this sequence *, †, ‡, §, **, ††, ‡‡, §§ etc. Bar graphs and pie charts should only be used where absolutely indicated and should be provided in color, where possible the information should be presented in table format.

References:

References should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text, not alphabetically, and formatted according in Vancouver style (http://library.vcc.ca/downloads/VCC_VancouverStyleGuide.pdf). References must be highlighted in bold throughout the text of the manuscript. List all authors when there are 6 or fewer; when there are 7 or more, list only the first 6 and add “et al”. References older than year 2014 should be updated to the most recent. Acceptable references are from year 2014 to present, however, one or 2 historical references may be used if necessary. All references must be cited in the text or tables. Where references are cited in tables only, the first reference number used in the table should follow on numerically from the last reference number used in the main text of the article. Where previous studies are mentioned in a table the authors names should appear in Vancouver style, with the names and reference numbers appearing in one column, and any other necessary information appearing in a separate column. Unpublished data and personal communications will not be accepted as references. Please try to avoid using conference papers or abstracts as references, these can only be allowed if published by journals included in Index Medicus or a well-known publishing company and are within one year from the submission date of the manuscript. Only 1-2 up to date references should be used for each particular point in the text. References to journal articles should include, in this order: (1) authors surname initials, (2) title of the article, (3) journal name (as abbreviated in Index Medicus, if not included in Index Medicus journal title should be given in full), (4) year of publication, (5) volume number, (6) full page numbers (start and end). Volume and edition numbers and specific page numbers should be included when appropriate. URLs and DOI should be provided. Secondary references are not acceptable. The author is responsible for the accuracy and completeness of the references and for their correct textual citation. When a citation is referred to in the text by name, the accompanying reference must be from the original source. Upon acceptance of a paper all authors must be able to provide the full paper for each reference cited upon request at any time up to publication. Failure to do so may result in the paper being withdrawn from the journal. Example of correct reference form is given as follows:

Journal:

Al Momen RK, Al Nadedh NN. Evaluation of antenatal services in a primary health care setting in Riyadh. Saudi Med J 1998; 19: 249-253.

Book Chapter:

Weinstein L, Swartz MN. Pathogenic properties of invading microorganisms. In: Sodeman WA Jr, Sodeman WA, editors. Pathologic mechanism of disease. Philadelphia (PA): WB Saunders; 1974. p. 457-472.

Review Articles should include an extended bibliography. Original Articles and Case Reports should include up to date references, preferably not exceeding 15 for Case Reports. Brief Communication should include a maximum of 5 references.

Illustrations:

All figures or photographs should be submitted in a high resolution (minimum 300 DPI) electronic version saved in jpeg or tiff format. Original hard copies of all figures may be requested when necessary. Photographs will be accepted at the discretion of the Editorial Board. All lettering, arrows, or other artwork must be done by an artist or draftsman. If arrows are used please ensure they appear in a different color to the background color, preferably black with a white border, or white with a black border. If arrows distinguish different items on the figure then different arrow styles should be used i.e. long, short, wide, narrow. Written informed consent for publication must accompany any photograph in which the subject can be identified. Written copyright permission, from the publishers, must accompany any illustration that has been previously published. All illustrations (“figures”) must be numbered as cited in the text in consecutive numeric order. With color illustrations, the author must bear part of the expense for color reproduction. Titles and detailed explanations belong in the legends for illustrations, (on a separate sheet), not on the illustrations themselves. If the authorship does not include a radiologist, please ensure that all radiology figures are reviewed and written approval submitted from a radiologist. Please note, this will not qualify for authorship, however, an acknowledgment may be included.

In addition to still images, the journal will consider video as supplementary material to an article. All submitted videos will be peer- reviewed by the editorial board. Necessary permission and consent for a video material to be published is mandatory and should be provided during submission. For technical requirements, videos should be narrated in English not exceeding 10 minutes in length, high definition maximum 1080p, file size not exceeding 1 GB in MP4 format. Other details such as name of speaker in the video, keywords, date and place of recording, captions should also be provided‥

Units of Measurement:

Le Système International d’ Unités (SI) are preferred Equivalent values in traditional units should be given if thought to be necessary.

Abbreviations and symbols

Use only accepted international abbreviations. Avoid abbreviations in the title and abstract. The full term for which an abbreviation stands should precede its first use in the text unless it is a standard unit of measurement. The following is a list of abbreviations which may be used without expansion. CD; CD-ROM; DDT; DNA; DOS; EDTA; F; HLA; ISSN; Nd:YAG; OD; OS; OU; PaCO2; PaO2; PAO2; PCO2; pH; PO2; RAM; RNA; ROM; SD; SE; SEM; SSC; SSPE; TNM; ul; UV; UV-A; UV-B; UV-C; VDRL.

Ethical consent:

All manuscripts reporting the results of experimental investigations involving human subjects should include a statement confirming that informed consent was obtained from each subject or subject’s guardian, after receiving approval of the experimental protocol by a local human ethics committee, or institutional review board. Ethical approval is necessary not only for patient consent, but to avoid duplication of work from the same institute, and confirms that the institute gives approval to release the data. When reporting experiments on animals, authors should indicate whether the institutional and national guide for the care and use of laboratory animals was followed.

Conflict of interest:

Conflict of interest for a given manuscript exists when a participant in the peer review and publication process - author, reviewer, and editor - has ties to activities that could inappropriately influence his and her judgment, whether or not judgment is in fact affected. Financial relationships with industry (for example, through employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, expert testimony), either directly or through immediate family, are usually considered to be the most important conflicts of interest. However, conflicts can occur for other reasons, such as personal relationships, academic competition, and intellectual passion. Public trust in the peer review process and the credibility of published articles depends in part on how well conflict of interest is handled during writing, peer review, and editorial decision making. Bias can often be identified and eliminated by careful attention to the scientific methods and conclusions of the work. Financial relationships and their efforts are less easily detected than other conflicts of interest. Participants in peer review and publication should disclose their conflicting interests, and the information should be made available so that others can judge their effects for themselves. Because readers may be less able to detect bias in review articles and editorials than in reports of original research, some journals do not accept reviews and editorials from authors with a conflict of interest.

Authors:

When they submit a manuscript, whether an article or a letter, authors are responsible for recognizing and disclosing financial and other conflicts of interest that might bias their work. They should acknowledge in the manuscript all financial support for the work and other financial or personal connections to the work.

Reviewers:

External peer reviewers should disclose to editors any conflicts of interest that could bias their opinions of the manuscript, and they should disqualify themselves from reviewing specific manuscripts if they believe it appropriate. The editors must be made aware of reviewers’ conflicts of interest to interpret the reviews and judge for themselves whether the reviewer should be disqualified. Reviewers should not use knowledge of the work, before its publication, to further their own interests.

Editors and staff:

Editors who make final decisions about manuscripts should have no personal financial involvement in any of the issues they might judge. Other members of the editorial staff, if they participate in editorial decisions, should provide editors with a current description of their financial interests (as they might relate to editorial judgments) and disqualify themselves from any decisions where they have a conflict of interest that, in the editors’ judgment, readers should know about. Editorial staff should not use for private gain the information gained through working with manuscripts. With regard to publications in the journal by editors or members of the advisory/editorial board, the concerned person will be excluded from any editorial decisions, the article will undergo the usual external peer-review, and a disclosure will be included in the published piece.

Corrections, retractions and expressions of concern about research findings:

Editors must assume initially that authors are reporting work based on honest observations. Nevertheless, two types of difficulty may arise.

Firstly, errors may be noted in published articles that require the publication of a correction or erratum of part of the work. It is conceivable that an error could be so serious as to vitiate the entire body of the work, but this is unlikely and should be handled by editors and authors on an individual basis. Such an error should not be confused with inadequacies exposed by the emergence of new scientific information in the normal course of research. The latter require no corrections or withdrawals.

The second type of difficulty is scientific fraud. If substantial doubts arise about the honesty of work, either submitted or published, it is the editors’ responsibility to ensure that the question is appropriately pursued (including possible consultation with the authors). However, it is not the task of editors to conduct a full investigation or to make a determination; that responsibility lies with the institution where the work was carried out or with the funding agency. The editor should be promptly informed of the final decisions, and, if a fraudulent paper has been published, the journal must print a retraction. If this method of investigation does not result in a satisfactory conclusion, the editor may choose to publish an expression of concern, with an explanation.

The retraction or expression of concern, so labelled, should appear on a numbered page in a prominent section of the journal, be listed in the contents page, and include in its heading the title of the original article. It should not simply be a letter to the editor. Ideally, the first author should be the same in the retraction as in the article, although under certain circumstances the editor may accept retractions by other responsible people. The text of the retraction should explain why the article is being retracted and include a bibliographic reference to it.

If a published paper is found later to be extensively plagiarized and is found to be a duplicate or redundant publication, a note of retraction will be published, the indexing services will be notified, and copies of the correspondence will be sent to the authors’ head of institute.

The validity of previous work by the author of a fraudulent paper cannot be assumed. Editors may ask the authors’ institution to assure them of the validity of earlier work published in their journals or to retract it. If this is not done they may choose to publish an announcement to the effect that the validity of previously published work is not assured.

Permission to Reprint:

Whenever a manuscript contains material (text, tables dosages, figures etc.), which is protected by copyright, it is the obligation of the author to secure written permission from the holder of the copyright.

Galley Proofs:

The research team of any study should assign one of the authors as the corresponding author. The Editorial Office will send proofs of the manuscript to the corresponding author for final proof reading and it will be the responsibility of the corresponding author to return the galley proof materials appropriately corrected within the stipulated time, proofs will not be accepted from any other of the authors without an accompanying authorization letter from the corresponding author. After the corresponding author has signed the galley proof, they will bear the burden of responsibility for any publication errors missed on the galley proof found after publication. No major changes such as deletion, shortening or expansion of sentences in the text will be accepted at this time. During the proofing process, no addition of information is allowed, however, if there new relevant information to be added to the manuscript, this can be included as an addendum to the article. The corresponding author(s) is required to sign on each page of the galley proof indicating their approval of any Editorial amendments and agree that the meaning of their article has not been altered. The author should review this carefully, as he is responsible for all changes in his work, including changes made by the copy editor. It is the duty of the corresponding author to respond promptly to any query from the Editing Department as failure to do so may result not only in delay of the article but also return of the article to the author without publication. Papers will be published only when the finally accepted manuscript signed by the corresponding author or designated corresponding author is received in the Editorial Office. If a manuscript is sent out for proofing and no response is received from the corresponding author, this manuscript will be deferred for one issue only. The proof will then be resent after one month and if there is still no response from the corresponding author at that time the paper may be withdrawn from the Journal. If the Editorial Office is able to proofread the article and answer any outstanding queries, it will be at the Editor’s discretion to proceed with the publishing of the paper including a statement that this has not been proofread by the corresponding author. If there are a substantial number of unresolved queries then the paper may be withdrawn from the Journal.

Submit manuscripts to:

Editor, Saudi Medical Journal, Prince Sultan Military Medical City, PO Box 7897, Riyadh 11159, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Tel. +966 (11) 4777714 Ext. 42846. Website: https://mc04.manuscriptcentral.com/psmmc-smj