Submission Type

Quantitative Research

  1. Maximum word length: 6,000 words, not including abstract, tables/figures, references
  2. Structured abstract: 250 words, with the headings Objectives, Method(s), Results, Conclusion and Implication

Qualitative Research

  1. Maximum word length: 9,000 words, not including abstract, tables/figures, references
  2. Structured abstract: 250 words, with the headings Objectives, Method(s), Results, Conclusion and Implication

Commentary

  1. Maximum word length: 1,500 words, not including abstract, tables/figures, references
  2. Text abstract: 200 words

Review

  1. Maximum word length: 7,000 words, not including abstract, tables/figures, references
  2. Structured abstract: 250 words, with the headings Objectives, Method(s), Results, Conclusion and Implication

Brief Reports/clinical notes

  1. Maximum word length: 1,500 words, not including abstract, tables/figures, references
  2. Text abstract: 200 words

Ethical Guidelines

Conflict of Interest

  • When authors submit a manuscript, they are responsible for disclosing all financial and personal relationships that might bias their work. To prevent ambiguity, authors must state explicitly whether potential conflicts do or do not exist.
  • Conflict of interest statements should be present on every manuscript before the References section. The statement should mention each author separately by name. The recommended wording is as follows:
  • Author X declares that he has no conflict of interest.
  • Author Y has received research grants from Drug Company A.
  • Author Z has received a speaker honorarium from Drug Company B and owns stock in Drug Company C.
  • If multiple authors declare no conflict, this can be done in one sentence: Author X, Author Y and Author Z declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Informed Consent

For studies with human subjects, please include the following statement before the References section:

  • ‘All 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 (5). Informed consent was obtained from all patients for being included in the study.’
  • If any identifying information about patients is included in the article, the following sentence should also be included:
    • ‘Additional informed consent was obtained from all patients for which identifying information is included in this article.’
  • For studies with animals, include the following sentence in the manuscript before the References section:
    • ‘All institutional and national guidelines for the care and use of laboratory animals were followed.’
  • If the authors did not carry out animal and/or human studies as part of their article they must include the following statement in the manuscript before the References section:
    • ‘No animal or human studies were carried out by the authors for this article.’
    • The editors reserve the right to reject manuscripts that do not comply with the above-mentioned requirements. The author will be held responsible for false statements or failure to fulfill the above-mentioned requirements

Funding Sources

Each author must indicate whether or not they have a financial relationship with the organization that sponsored the research. For each source of funds, both the research funder and the grant number should be given.

Manuscript Preparation

To ensure the integrity of the blind peer review for submissions to JSD, please ensure that all identifying information is removed (i.e., authors/affiliations, header/footer, properties, and acknowledgements section). Please check to see if the following steps have been taken with regard to the text and the file properties:

  1. The authors of the document have deleted their names from the text.
  2. To remove author identification when using Microsoft Office documents, go to “File” in Word and click on the following: File > Save As > Tools (or “Options” if using a Mac) > Security > Remove personal information from the file properties > Save.

The manuscript must be double-spaced and pages must be numbered consecutively starting at “1” (i.e., not “0” for title page), including abstract, text, references, tables and figures. Please submit your manuscript with line numbers.

Title Page

The title page of the blinded version of the submission should include:

  1. Type of submission;
  2. Title;
  3. Short running title of no more than 50 characters including letters and spaces
  4. Word count of abstract;
  5. Word count of the body of the text (i.e., not including references, tables, figures).

Once an article has been accepted for publication, the corresponding author will be asked to provide a fully-identified version of the manuscript.

  • The title page of the fully-identified manuscript should include in addition to the above:
  • First name, middle initial, and last name of each author, with the highest academic degree(s), and the name(s) of department(s) and institutions to which the work should be attributed;
  • Name, address, telephone number, fax number and e-mail address of the author responsible for correspondence;
  • Any necessary acknowledgements of sources of support (funding and otherwise);
  • A conflict of interest statement.

Text

Divide the text into sections headed Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion and Implications.
Approval should be obtained from a recognized ethics approval board for studies involving human subjects. This approval should be indicated in the Methods section.

References

The style for references is based on APA style. See examples that follow at:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/

Tables

Tables should be double-spaced and numbered consecutively using Arabic numerals, and included in the original blinded Word document. Supply a brief title for each table.

Example of style:

Table 1. Demographic Characteristics of Survey Participants

Give each column and row a brief or abbreviated heading. Do not use vertical or horizontal rules in the body of tables. Cite each table in the text in consecutive numerical order.
Place explanatory matter in footnotes, using the following symbols, in this sequence:
*, †, ‡, §, ||, ¶, **, ††, ‡‡, etc.

Figures

In the original submission for blinded peer review, figures should be included in the submitted manuscript.

Number figures consecutively in Arabic numerals and supply a brief title for each.

Example of style:

Figure 1. Distribution of the total number of depression cases in New Mexico, U.S. between April 2000 and July 2011

Place explanatory matter in footnotes, using the following symbols, in this sequence:

*, †, ‡, §, ||, ¶, **, ††, ‡‡, etc.