submission guidelines
Submission guidelines
Our author guidelines are in accordance with the recommendations of the ICMJE (https://www.icmje.org/).
If any of the information outlined in these guidelines is missing, your manuscript may be returned to you for resolution prior to peer review.
The manuscript to be submitted should not be published previously, except in the form of preprint, abstract, poster, or academic thesis, and it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. It should be an original work and it will be checked for plagiarism.
All manuscript submissions must be submitted through our website. The website guides authors through the stepwise submission process.
After submission of the manuscript, the corresponding author will be able to track its progress through the online submission system of the journal and follow up on the reviewers’ feedback, revisions and final approval of the proofs.
When logging in as an author you will be asked to fill the following forms and submit them in the following order:
- The cover letter that includes: Title of the manuscript, authors' names and related contact information, and ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID, https://orcid.org/), statement about financial support, authorship and contributorship, aknowledgement, statement about concurrent submission for another journal, plagiarism)
- The conflict-of-interest form (to be downloaded from the cover letter)
- The manuscript (please refer to author guidelines on what to include in your manuscript and how to format it)
- Table(s), figure(s), if not embedded in the text. Files are to be named appropriately and accurately.
- Permission statement(s) for any copyrighted material, as a separate file
- Electronic copy of the IRB permission letter when applicable, as a separate file, may be submitted upon request
Should you need any assistance throughout the submission process, our editorial team is ready to help. You can reach them via the journal’s Contact Us page.
DESCRIPTIONS OF SPECIFIC ARTICLE TYPES
Reporting guidelines
Before submitting your manuscript, you are kindly requested to refer to the equator-network reporting guidelines and have your work cross-checked against the corresponding checklist or the closest one to the work. Please note that the list of guidelines is long, make sure you go through it to check if there is a specific checklist or a specific supplement to a checklist for your work. For example, for a pain clinical trial, there is a pain-specific supplement to CONSORT. Checklist for the preparation and review of pain clinical trial publications: a pain-specific supplement to CONSORT
The corresponding checklist is to be filled with page and line numbers of the manuscript that correspond to each checklist item.
EQUATOR Network reporting guidelines for main study types
Study type |
Guidelines checklist |
Notes |
Randomised trials |
The submission of the CONSORT flowchart diagram is highly encouraged |
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Observational studies (cohort, case-control, and cross-sectional studies) |
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Systematic reviews |
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Observational studies in epidemiology |
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Study protocols |
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Diagnostic/prognostic studies |
|
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Case reports |
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Clinical practice guidelines |
RIGHT |
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Qualitative research |
|
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Quality improvement studies |
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Economic evaluations |
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Self-administered surveys of clinicians |
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Population health and policy interventions |
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Intervention Development |
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Manuscript parts characteristics
Type of article |
Abstract (words) |
Main text (word) |
Tables and figures |
References |
Original research |
Structured1,2 (250) |
Sections: Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Limitations, Conclusion
(4000) |
8 or fewer, For RCT: the CONSORT flow diagram should be added as a figure |
50 |
Brief report |
Structured2 (250) |
Sections: Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Limitations, Conclusion
(2000) |
2 |
15 |
Systematic reviews & Meta-analyses |
Structured2 (300) |
(4500) |
8 |
50 |
Narrative review |
Non-structured (300) |
(4500) |
3 |
50 |
Case report |
Non-structured (150) |
Introduction, Case presentation, Discussion, Conclusion (1500) |
1 table and 3 figures |
10 |
Letter to the editor |
Not required |
(800) |
1 |
10 |
- Items to include in a randomized trial abstract: title, trial design, methods [participants, interventions, objective, outcome, randomization, blinding (masking)], results (numbers randomized, recruitment, numbers analyzed, outcome, harms), conclusion. These items have been identified as essential by the CONSORT group.
- Structured abstract subheadings: “Objective”, “Methods and Analysis”, “Results” and “Conclusion.
Considerations in terms of some types of articles:
RCT:
A clinical trial is a research project where people are assigned to an intervention to study the cause-and-effect relationship between a health-related intervention and a health outcome, with concurrent comparison or control groups.
A clinical trial should be registered in a registry of clinical trials approved by World Health Organization (WHO) or the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). The Lebanese Registry of Clinical Trials is an option.
For research conducted with human subjects, an informed consent shall be obtained. Besides, Institutional Review Board (IRB) or Research Ethics Committee (REC) obtained approval shall be included in the “Methods” section. For those who do not have IRB or formal ethics review committees, the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki should be followed and that should be mentioned as well in the “Methods” section.
Case Report
- A case report is the detailed report of a single patient’s experience in the Medical Center including aspects like exposure, symptoms, signs, intervention, and outcome. PoEM favors case reviews that address unusual or puzzling clinical features, a challenging differential diagnosis, rare or novel adverse reactions to care, rare disease, improved or unique technical procedures, unusual benefits or deleterious effects of a therapeutic or diagnostic procedure, management of a medical condition with multiple comorbidities, an unusual setting for care, or those that provide insights on clinical or administrative nursing practice in terms of emergency medicine/critical care.
- It is preferable, when applicable, to present the literature review in a table format highlighting the references titles, authors, date, case management and outcome, to provide a complete perspective to the reader. In the conclusion part, the take-away message, relevant learning points should be underlined.
- An informed consent should be obtained from the patient to report his/her case.
Brief Reports
Original research papers are published in a brief format when they utilize a simple research design or a small sample size and that they produce limited pilot data and initial findings for which further research is warranted.
Letter to the Editor
A letter may be written in response to a published article to inquire about a point or constructively criticize the article, and the author will have the right to reply. The letter as well, may address a special topic related to emergency medicine, critical care, education, leadership, … To be considered for publication, letters should be relevant to the scope of our journal.
Quality management
The work should include either a management tool (e.g., SWOT analysis, fishbone diagram,...), a program and/or program evaluation logic model, or reported according to TIDieR-PHP guidelines.
Manuscript parts and format:
- The manuscript page should include: title of the manuscript, Word count, umber of tables, number of figures, abstract, Keywords, references, figures and tables
- The abstract and the manuscript should be submitted with continuous line numbering
- The manuscript should be submitted in a blinded way; remove any part that can reveal your identity. Authors names and affiliation should be documented on the cover letter form, separately from the manuscript.
- Submit your manuscript (text, figures and tables) as a single file, with all illustrations, figures, and tables placed within the text at the appropriate points, unless a figure cannot be uploaded within the text, submit it separately.
- The submitted file should be in Microsoft Word format
- The text is single-spaced; uses a 12-point Times New Roman font
- Main text should be separated under appropriate headings and subheadings using the following hierarchy: BOLD CAPS, bold lower case, Plain text, Italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses)
- All text pages are numbered
Title and keywords
- Title: The title should provide an accurate description of the article and should include information about the study design, especially when it comes to randomized trials, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses. Limit the title to the shortest possible, try not to exceed the 40 characters.
- Keywords–
- Immediately after the abstract, provide a maximum of 6 keywords, according to Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) terms, using American English spelling.
- The words or phrases used in the title or keywords should be selected wisely. For a better dissemination of the article, using same words or phrases in the title and in the keywords is not a good choice.
Abstract:
- The “abstract” should be concise, precise, self-explanatory, and should not be misleading. Even for an unstructured abstract, you should provide an idea about the topic, a purpose statement, and highlight your findings and their relevance to the general topic.
- No abbreviations or references/citations should appear in the abstract.
Key Message,
- Key message with maximum 5 sentences, after the abstract with the following headings answered:
- What is already known on this topic– Give a clear picture of the existing scientific knowledge about the topic and why there was a need to conduct your study
- What this study adds - summarize which value did your study add to the currently published literature
- How this study might affect research, practice or policy- summarize the implications of your study
Tables
- Tables should be in Word format and placed in the main text where the table is first cited.
- Number tables consecutively in the order of their first citation in the text and supply a title for each, the title should precede the table.
- Titles in tables should be short but self-explanatory,
- Abbreviations should be redefined under the table even if already defined in the text
- Be sure that each table is cited in the text.
- Place explanatory matter in footnotes, not in the heading.
- Use alphabet letter to explain information if needed.
- Identify statistical measures of variations, such as standard deviation and standard error of the mean.
Illustrations (figures)
- Afigure should be placed in the main text where it is first cited.
- Figures should be numbered consecutively according to the order in which they have been cited in the text.
- Titles and detailed explanations belong in the legends—not on the illustrations themselves.
- Abbreviations should be redefined under the figure even if already defined in the text
- Send high-resolution photographic image files
- Figures should be made as self-explanatory as possible
- If a figure has been published previously, acknowledge the original source. Written permission is required from the copyright holder to reproduce it, except for documents in the public domain.
Units of Measurement
- Measurements of length, height, weight, and volume should be reported in metric units (meter, kilogram, or liter) or their decimal multiples.
- Temperatures should be in degrees Celsius.
- Blood pressures should be in millimeters of mercury.
- For reporting hematologic, clinical chemistry, and other measurements, use laboratory information in both local and International System of Units (SI).
- You may report drug concentrations in either SI or mass units, but the alternative should be provided in parentheses where appropriate.
Abbreviations and Symbols
- Abbreviations should be spelled out at first mention, followed by the abbreviation in parentheses, unless the abbreviation is a standard unit of measurement.
Drug name
- Whenever possible, the generic name of a drug is to be used instead of the proprietary name. If it is necessary to use a trade name for a drug, it should be mentioned between parentheses after the generic name.
- For all look-alike, sound-alike medications, use the FDA/ISMP tall lettering system. Product names are treated similarly, and the manufacturer's full name, city, and state are cited in parentheses in the text after mention of the product name.
References
- Reference numbers in the text should be inserted immediately after punctuation (with no word spacing)—for example,[4] not [4]. Where more than one reference is cited, these should be separated by a comma, for example,(3, 5, 22]).
- Use of DOI numbers in references.
- References should not be used by authors, editors, or peer reviewers to promote self-interests.
- Provide the URLs for the references, when applicable
- When a reference is accepted but not published yet, denote that it is “in press” or “forthcoming”.
- Information from a manuscript that was submitted but not accepted should be cited in the text as “unpublished observations” with written permission from the source.
- “Personal communication” should be avoided unless it offers important information that cannot be retrieved from a public source. In this case, the name of the person and date of communication should be cited in parentheses in the text. Besides, written permission and confirmation of accuracy from the source of communication should be mentioned.
- Number references consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text.
- Identify references in text, tables, and legends by Arabic numerals in parentheses.
- The titles of journals should be abbreviated according to the style used for MEDLINE (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/journals).
- Cite electronic references in numbered references following the text.
- References should follow the standards of “the NLM style guide for authors, editors, and publishers, that you can also find at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/pmcdoc/tagging-guidelines/citations/v2/citationtags.html. For a summarized version you may check the NLM’s Sample References.