Submissions

Author Guidelines

INFORMATION FOR AUTHORS

Introduction

The journal strives to provide readers with open-access, peer-reviewed, articles and commentaries on broadly medical and health-related issues by publishing research findings, case reports, reviews, and perspectives. Authors should carefully read this author’s guidelines and section policies for information on manuscript submission.

Scope of the Journal

Manuscripts submitted to TNHJ   may be in the form of review articles, original research articles, case series and reports, clinical practice materials, editorial letters, short commentaries, books reviews and medical educational materials.  This covers clinical research (Surgery, Paediatrics, Obstetrics and Gynaecology etc), basic medicine (anatomy, physiology, biochemistry etc), nursing, pharmacy/pharmacology, laboratory practice, physiotherapy etc. All contributions are not expected to have been previously published in print or online or simultaneously submitted to another journal. 

Manuscript submission

All articles should be submitted through the journal online article submission platform. Manuscripts should be written in English with double line spacing, with margins of at least I inch on all sides. Pages should be numbered consecutively, beginning with the title page and continuing through to the last page.

Formatting Requirements

Manuscripts should be submitted in Microsoft Word format, Times New Romans with font size of 12 and double-spaced. Authors should remove all identifying information from the main manuscript before submission. Final format of manuscript is done after copyedit by the editorial office.

Authorship

Authorship implies responsibility and accountability. This should be those who have made substantial contributions to the research and preparation of the manuscript. Journal subscribes to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) which based authorship on 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
• Final approval of the version to be published
• Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work

The full names of all authors (first, initial, surname) should be provided as well as their affiliations. The phone and email of the corresponding author should also be provided. The Journal will scrutinize any change in authorship after submission of manuscript and irregularity in authors’ status can lead to withdrawal of the manuscript

Acknowledgements

Contributors who do not meet all four ICMJE criteria are acknowledged but not given authorship status. Acknowledgements of general support, grants, technical assistance, etc, should be indicated. Authors are responsible for obtaining the consent of all institutions and those being acknowledged. The journals endorsed Conflict of interest disclosure forms and statements shall be provided by the Authors before publication of their articles.

Ethical Approval

Authors of original research articles are expected to make statements, confirming the Ethical approval of* the work from their respective institutions on submission of their manuscript. TNHJ may, if necessary, request evidence of such approval from the Authors Institutional Review Boards. When reporting experiments on human subjects, authors should indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000. If doubt exists whether the research was conducted in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration, the authors must explain the rationale for their approach and demonstrate that the institutional review body explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study. When reporting experiments on animals, authors should indicate whether the institutional and national guide for the care and use of laboratory animals was followed.

PREPARATION OF MANUSCRIPTS

Each manuscript should have a: 

Cover page

Stating Authors names, affiliated institution, corresponding author with full contact address with email and phone numbers, conflict of interest declaration, acknowledgement, ethical conformity statement, a running title of not more than 60 characters, word count for the abstract and manuscript body and acknowledgements.

Abstract

Abstracts should be structured and a summary of the background stating the objective of the paper, methods, results, and conclusion, should not exceed 250 words for all categories of articles. Citations, Figures, Tables, Images, Illustrations, Abbreviations (if possible) should not be included in the abstract.

Keywords

Keywords are essential and frequently used to maximise online retrieval of the article. The keywords should not be more than 7 words/phases, and contain essential terms/words from the title, abstract or main manuscript. Should be cases (except abbreviations or proper names), separated by commas and end in a full stop. Acronyms should be spelt out e.g., IOM, Institute of Medicine.

Abbreviation and Nomenclature

All abbreviations must first be written in full followed by parentheses before subsequent use in the manuscript.  All Non-standard abbreviations contained in the manuscript (excluding references) should be listed in an alphabetical order with definitions after key words

Main Manuscript

Except for Review Articles, Case Reports, Editorial, Short Commentaries and Medical Education articles, all manuscript Should be categorized into the Introduction, Methodology, Results, Discussion and References section.  Each of the following sections should begin on a new page.  All units of measurement and laboratory values must be expressed in line with (System International) SI unit standards.  Tables and figures should be numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals and placed after the sections of the manuscript which they reflect, particularly the results which they describe on separate pages. Legends should be provided for all tables and figures, with Arabic numerals corresponding to the tables and figures. Any abbreviation and symbols in the tables and figures should also be explained. Vertical lines should not be used when constructing the tables. All tables and figures should also be sent in electronic format by email on submission of the manuscript as supplementary files. Clinical Photographs should conceal the subject's identity. The authors accept the full responsibility of obtaining the written consent of the subjects.

The Nigerian Health Journal adheres to the EQUATOR (Enhancing the QUAlity and Transparency Of health Research) Network initiative that seeks to enhance reporting of medical literature (https://www.equator-network.org/). Authors should ensure that the appropriate reporting guidelines/checklists/statements are followed in reporting their research. Such guidelines include:

• CONSORT (Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials)
• PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis)
• ENTREQ (Enhancing Transparency in REporting the synthesis of Qualitative research)
• COREQ (Consolidated criteria for REporting Qualitative research)
• CARE (CAse REport guidelines)
• SQUIRE (Standards for Quality Improvement Reporting Excellence)
• STROBE (Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology)
• SPIRIT (Standard Protocol Items for Interventional Trials)
• CHEERS (Consolidated Health Economic Evaluation Reporting Standards)
• STARD (Standards for Reporting Diagnostic Accuracy Studies)
• MOOSE (Meta-analysis of Observational Studies in Epidemiology)
• AGREE (Appraisal of Guidelines Research & Evaluation)
• REMARK (Reporting Recommendations for Tumor Marker Prognostic Studies)

Article Length

Word limits inclusive of references are as follows; Correspondence: 1500 words, Short Commentaries: 2,500 words, Reviews: 4,000 words, Original Research articles: 3,500 words, Case Reports: 2,500 words, Book review 4,000 words, medical education, and clinical practice materials 4,000 words.  The word limits exclude tables, figures, and references. Authors should assume each figure counts for 250 words of the total word count. However, depending on the topic and potential impact of a paper, the Editor-in-Chief reserves the right to waive word limits.

Referencing

References should be cited in accordance with the Vancouver citation in line with the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (http://www.icmje.org/). References in the text should be numbered consecutively in superscript font format in the order in which they are first cited, using Arabic numerals.  Unpublished papers should not be listed in the references. The names of the journals in the reference section should be abbreviated in line with Index Medicus guidelines. Journals without standard abbreviation should be written in full. References cited only in tables or figure legends should be numbered in accordance with the first mention of the relevant table or figure in the text. Authors are advised to review the reference guidelines below. [Authors may also view this document through this URL http://www.library.uq.edu.au/training/citation/vancouv.pdf]

The TNHJ Reference guidelines was sourced from the University of Queensland Australia Library resources, titled the “References/Bibliography Vancouver Style “How To guide”.

 The list of references should contain details of only of those works cited in the text which preferably should not be more than 40 references. Your reference list should identify references cited (e.g., book, journal article, pamphlet, internet site, cassette tape or film) in sufficient detail so that others may locate and consult your references. Punctuation marks and spaces in the reference list and citations are very important. Follow the punctuation and spacing exactly in the examples given.  When multiple references are cited at a given place in the text, use a hyphen to join the first and last numbers that are inclusive. Use commas (without spaces) to separate non inclusive numbers in a multiple citation e.g., 2,3,4,5,7,10 is abbreviated to (2-5,7,10) Do not use a hyphen if there are no citation numbers in between that support your statement e.g., 1-2. Give the first six names in full and add “et al”. The authors should be listed in the order in which they appear on the title page and ensure consistency in their referencing format.

Submission checklist

Authors should use this list to carry out a final check of your submission before you send it to the journal for review. Please check the relevant section in this Guide for Authors for more details.

Ensure that the following items are present:

*One author has been designated as the corresponding author √

*All authors included meet the requirements of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommendations for authorship

*Contact details of corresponding author is provided:

• E-mail address √
• Phone number √
• Full postal address √

*Affiliations and ORCID iDs (if available) of all authors are provided √

*All necessary files have been uploaded √

*Manuscript:

• Include keywords √
• All figures (include relevant captions) √
• All tables (including titles, description, footnotes) √
• Ensure all figure and table citations in the text match the files provided √
• Indicate clearly if color should be used for any figures in print √
• Graphical Abstracts / Highlights files (where applicable) √
• Supplemental files (where applicable) √

*Further considerations

• Ethics approval obtained and reported in the manuscript √
• Manuscript has been 'spell checked' and 'grammar checked' √
• Manuscript reported in line with specified reporting guideline √
• All references mentioned in the Reference List are cited in the text, and vice versa √
• References are in Vancouver referencing style √
• Permission has been obtained for use of copyrighted material from other sources (including the Internet) √
• Full disclosure if AI tools were used in concept development, data collection, analysis, writing the manuscripts. Authors are fully responsible for the content of their manuscript, even those parts produced by an Ai tool, are thus liable for any breach of publication ethics √
• A competing interest’s statement is provided, even if the authors have no competing interests to declare Journal policies detailed in this guide have been reviewed √