Akdeniz Medical Journal

The aim of the journal is to present the studies conducted at the Akdeniz Faculty of Medicine and in Turkey in the fields of health sciences and related areas to the national and international science environment and contribute to their announcement and sharing and therefore to the promotion of Turkey in this context. The Akdeniz Medical Journal is targeting to provide free and easy access to the journal in printed or electronic form for all relevant medical institutions and information centers in Turkey and globally and also to be included in national and international indexes.

The Akdeniz Medical Journal is the scientific publication of Akdeniz University Faculty of Medicine and is a peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary medical journal published every four months (January, May, September) according to ethical principles and rules.
The abbreviation of Akdeniz Medical Journal is Akd Med J / Akd Tıp D.
The Akdeniz Medical Journal is indexed by ResearchBib-Academic Research Index, Directory of Research Journals Indexing (DRJI), International Citation Index of Journal Impact Factor & Indexing, Academia Social Science Index (ASOS Index), Academic Keys, Turkish Medical Index of TÜBİTAK-ULAKBİM, TurkMedline, CiteFactor, Araştırmax and EuroPub.
The aim of the journal is to present the studies conducted at the Akdeniz Faculty of Medicine and in Turkey in the fields of health sciences and related areas to the national and international science environment and contribute to their announcement and sharing and therefore to the promotion of Turkey in this context. The Akdeniz Medical Journal is targeting to provide free and easy access to the journal in printed or electronic form for all relevant medical institutions and information centers in Turkey and globally and also to be included in national and international indexes.
In line with these objectives, the articles containing original research (basic, clinical and epidemiologic) are preferred for publication in the Akdeniz Medical Journal. Editor reviews, collected studies, case presentations, letters to the editor, technical notes, articles on medical education, articles on medical history, and biographical articles are also accepted. The submitted work should not have been previously published as hard copy or in electronic format or currently sent to another journal or electronic media to be published. Using articles published in Turkish journals as references is especially preferred.
The Akdeniz Medical Journal that has previously been published as hard copy has now become an electronic journal and the ISSN number that used to be 1300-1779 has therefore now been changed to 2687-2781.
The publishing language of the Journal is Turkish and English. Care should be taken to protect the integrity of the Turkish language in Turkish articles and the current edition of the Spelling Guidelines and Turkish Dictionary of the Turkish Language Institution should be used as the basis. Care should be taken to use “Turkish Science Terminology” as much as possible in the use of medical terms. The authors can use the “Medicine Terminology Guide” of the Turkish Language Institution and other Medical Terminology Dictionaries.

The articles submitted for publication in the journal should be written double-spaced with 12-point Times New Roman font, leaving a 3-cm margin at the edges, and printed on single sides of A4 pages. Abbreviations should be written clearly, followed by an explanation in parentheses when they are first mentioned. Unconventional abbreviations should not be used. Numerical data between 1 and 10 in the article should be written as text (.... after five days ......) while 10 and higher numbers should be written as numbers. However, numbers between 1 and 10 with a descriptive should be written as numbers (e.g., 1 year) while numbers at the beginning of sentences (Fifteen years ago ......) should be written as text. There is no special limit to the number of words in original research and review articles. Case presentations should be limited to 1000 words not including the Abstract and should contain a minimum number of figures, tables and references. Views on various topics or the articles published in the journal can be written and a reply can be requested from the authors. Letters to the editor should contain a maximum of 1000 words with no tables or figures and should be signed by all the authors. The editor makes the decision on whether they are published in the journal. The date, subject and speakers of medical scientific meetings can be announced in the journal. Articles should be arranged in the order listed below.

Title Page: The Turkish and English title of the article, the authors' names, functions (academic titles) and contact information (e-mail, telephone) and also the sending institution and supporting institution, if any, should be specified. The "ORCID" information with international validity should be provided for all authors. The location and date should be declared if the text has previously been presented at a meeting. The name, surname, address, telephone and fax numbers and e-mail address of the corresponding author must also be clearly stated on this page.

Abstract: The abstracts should be prepared in Turkish and English on a separate page and each should not exceed 250 words including the titles for each language. The abstract should be designed to reflect the article and briefly provide significant results and a short analysis. All abbreviations should be explained and references must not be used in the abstract. Turkish and English abstracts should be in sections structured as follows: Amaç/Objective; Yöntem(ler)/Method(s); Bulgular/Results; Sonuç(lar)/Conclusion(s).

Key Words: Turkish and English key words should be provided in accordance with the “Index Medicus: Medical Subject Headings” standards. (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/authors.html) 3 to 10 key words should be included under the Turkish and English abstracts of all articles. It should be kept in mind that key words are the most important element in finding a document.

Sections: Introduction, material and method (design of the study, selection and identification of the cases, technical information, statistics, etc.), results, discussion and conclusion sections should be present in original research articles and introduction, case presentation and discussion sections should be present in case reports. Following these sections, “acknowledgements” can be added for those contributing to the preparation of the study or the article. Acknowledgements should be placed at the end of the article before the references. Statements of gratitude for personal, technical and equipment help are included in this section.

References: The references should be numbered and listed under the title References at the end of the article according to their order in the text. They should be written in parentheses inside the text. No inconsistency should be present between the list of references and their order in the text. References that are used through another reference without the original are not numbered and given in parentheses if necessary. The author(s) are responsible for the accuracy of the references. All references should be stated in the text. References should be given as in the following examples. All authors should be stated and “et al.” should not be used. The names of the journals should be in abbreviated form in accordance with Index Medicus. Abbreviation should not be used for journal names not included in Index Medicus.

Examples for Writing of References:

For Journals

Muzaale AD, Massie AB, Wang MC, Montgomery RA , McBride MA , Wainright JL, Segev DL. Risk of end-stage renal disease following live kidney donation. JAMA 2014; 311:579-86.

For Books

Chabner ba, Longo DL: Cancer Chemotherapy and Biotherapy: Principles and Practice, 5th ed. Philadelphia, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2011.

For chapters taken from books

Goadsby PJ. Pathophysiology of headache. In: Silberstein SD, Lipton RB, Dalessio DJ, eds. Wolff ’s headache and other head pain. 7th ed. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2001:57-72.

For conference papers

Christensen S, Oppacher F. An analysis of Koza’s computational effort statistic for genetic programming. In: Foster JA, Lutton E, M iller J, Ryan C, Tettamanzi AG, editors. Genetic programming. EuroGP 2002: Proceedings of the 5th European Conference on Genetic Programming; 2002 Apr 3-5; Kinsdale, Ireland. Berlin: Springer; 2002. p. 182-91.

For online articles

U.S. Renal Data System. USRDS 2007 annual data report. Bethesda, MD: National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, National Institutes of Health, 2007 (http://www.usrds.org/atlas07.aspx).

For journal annexes

Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) Acute Kidney Injury Work Group. KDIGO clinical practice guideline for acute kidney injury. Kidney Int Suppl 2012;2:1-138.

The above-mentioned examples are used for Turkish references not included in the Index Medicus, but the journal names are written without abbreviation.

Tables: Tables should come after references and each table should be on a separate page. Tables should be numbered with Roman numerals according to their order in the text. Table titles should be short and simple and the title should be placed at the top of the table. Table details and abbreviations should be included at the bottom of the table. Each table must be referred to in the text.

Figures: Should be placed on a page separate from the text. The figures should either be drawn or photographed professionally or sent digitally in photo quality. In addition to the versions of the figures suitable for printing, the electronic files should be sent as a highresolution electronic image such as JPE G or GIF and the authors should check the image quality of these files on the computer screen before sending. Symbols, arrows, and letters should contrast with the background. The magnification and staining techniques used in microscopy images must be specified. If a human image is used, either the person should not be recognized in the picture or written permission should be obtained. (See ethics section) The figure and image legends should be placed at the bottom together with Arabic numerals (1,2,3,....). The figures should be numbered according to their order in the text. The location of the figures should be specified in the text. Each figure should be referred to in the text. Colored figures can be printed if deemed necessary by the Editor or if the author meets the additional cost.

Sending Articles to the Journal: The articles should be sent as an electronic file written in Microsoft Word 2003 and above versions together with the “Copyright Transfer Form” and a cover letter stating that the article is sent for publication and specifying the relevant Akdeniz Medical Journal section (original research, case presentation, collected studies). This form should also be faxed to +90-(242) 227 4444. The author will be notified of the receipt of the article with an article number. This article number will be used in all correspondence. The following order should be used in the articles and each part should start with a new page:

1. Title page
2. Abstract
3. Text
4. Acknowledgements
5. References
6.Tables and Figures.

All pages should be numbered consecutively. The Akdeniz Medical Journal accepts articles sent as three printed copies or in the form of an electronic article on a CD and/or as an e-mail attachment. Electronic mail saves time and postal fees and the electronic form of the article provides advantages during the evaluation process. The articles should be sent online according to the instructions in the related parts of the Akdeniz Medical Journal website (www.akdeniztipdergisi.org) and the peer-review procedure will proceed as specified. A checklist is provided below for authors to make sure that there everything is complete before sending their articles.

Final Checklist:

1. Cover letter to editor; a) Category of the article, b) Statement specifying that the article has not been sent to another journal, c) Any relationship with a sponsor or commercial company (specify if present), d) A statement specifying that a statistical check was performed (for research articles), e) That the text of the article was checked for any language-related errors

2.Copyright transfer form

3. Permission statement if any previously published document (text, figure, table) is used

4. If a human factor is used, the “material and methods” section should include statements on compliance with the HELSIN KI Declaration principles and should mention that ethics committee approval and “informed consent” from the patients have been obtained.

5.If an animal factor is used, compliance with the “Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals” principles should be stated in the "material and methods" section.

6. Cover page including a) Turkish and English title of the article (preferably a single line) b) The authors and their institutions c) Correspondence address of all authors, work phone number, mobile phone number, E-mail addresses (this information should only be in the original copy of the article and not in the other three copies.)

7. Abstracts: 250 words (Turkish and English)

8. Key words: 3 to 10 in number (Turkish and English)

9. Acknowledgements

10. References

11. Tables – Figures

Open Access and Article Processing
The Mediterranean Medical Journal provides open access to scientific publications. Access to the published issue and the full text of the articles within is available free of charge. No fee is requested from the author(s) for publication of their articles.
The readers can download the Journal content for free for academic or educational use. The Journal is free for everyone. To ensure this goal, the Journal uses the financial resources of Akdeniz University, and the ongoing voluntary efforts of the editors and referees.
All scientific responsibility for the articles belongs to the authors. The name order of the submitted articles should be a joint decision. The responsible author is considered to accept the author order in the name of all authors by signing the “Author responsibility and Copyright Transfer Form”. Anyone who does not meet the criteria for authoring but has contributed to the study can be listed in “Acknowledgements”. The authors should declare in writing that the article is an original paper that has not been published before and that they will not attempt to publish it somewhere else during the evaluation process.
The authors are considered to have accepted any changes and corrections made by the editor as long as the scientific content is not changed. The articles sent are not returned whether published or not, and only images and figures that are not published can be returned to the author upon request.
The articles sent should be prepared in accordance with the journal rules and be ready for page layout. The editorial board has the authority not to publish articles that do not comply with the spelling rules, to return the article to the author for correction or to re-edit the article. The editor and language editors have complete authority in making changes and corrections in the writing language and spelling, making sure the references comply with the spelling rules, and other relevant issues. If previously published quoted text, tables, images, etc. are present in the article, the responsible author of the article should obtain the written permission of the related copyright owner and authors and also state it in the article.
The Publication Process and the Article Evaluation Period
The articles sent to the Akdeniz Medical Journal first undergo an objective review by the Editorial Board. The editors have the right to reject the articles directly or to send them back for re-editing. If there is no reason to reject the article in this stage, it is sent to two separate reviewers familiar with the article subject. Referees invited for article evaluation are asked to accept the invitation within a maximum of 7 days. An article that receives two positive referee reports from the field assessment is entitled to be published. An article that receives a positive and a negative referee's report is sent to a third referee, and whether the article is published or not is determined in accordance with the third referee’s report and/or the editorial decision. The evaluation period of the referees accepting the invitation is a maximum of 30 days. If the referees do not agree to the evaluation or do not submit the evaluation report at the end of the period, the article is sent to a new referee for evaluation. After evaluating the article, the referees send the evaluation form with their comments and suggestions to the editor. The editor then submits the editor comments and suggestions to the authors and asks them to upload the revised article back to the system. The authors' revision period is a maximum of 60 days. If the referees have asked to see the article again after the revision, the article is sent back to the referees for evaluation. This process continues until the referees provide their opinion as regards the acceptance or rejection of the article. The opinions of the referees are evaluated by the editors within 15 days at the latest. The final decision is declared to the author(s) as a result of this review.
The final decision for publication belongs to the editors. Once the page layout is prepared and corrections are made, the responsible authors will be asked for a final check and “publishing approval” to be provided in writing. Articles accepted for publication are published in the early online articles section in order of the date of acceptance. The presence of an article in early view does not indicate that it will be included in the next issue. During this early view period, the authors are required to review their articles and report their recommendations for revision according to the Journal writing rules and layout to the editorial board. The time to publication of the articles accepted for publication is 12-18 months. However, depending on factors such as the timeliness of the article, its originality, and the number of articles waiting for publication, this period may be shorter or longer. No changes can be made to the articles once the Journal is published.
The articles are sent to the reviewers after the authors’ names are removed from the text, in accordance with the peer-review system. Information on which reviewers the article has been sent to is not provided to the authors. Reviewers and Editorial Board members cannot discuss the articles in public. The comments of the reviewers on an article can be sent by the editor to other reviewers reviewing the same article, for clarification. Another reviewer can be assigned to replace a reviewer who cannot evaluate the sent article within the specified period.

ETHICAL PRINCIPLES

The Akdeniz Medical Journal requires the authors to comply with research and publication ethics. Compliance with national and international ethical guidelines and receiving permission from the related ethics committees are essential for studies performed on humans and animals. The “Ethics Committee Approval” should be sent to the www.akdeniztipdergisi.org address online. Compliance of articles with ethics rules is the responsibility of the authors.

Researches on humans: The journal accepts the principle of compliance with the principles stated in the WMA “Helsinki Declaration”, “Good Clinical Practice Guide” and “Good Laboratory Practice Guide” and the related regulations of the Republic of Turkey Ministry of Health for all studies where a “Human” factor is included. Obtaining permission from the “Clinical Studies Ethics Committee” and sending the relevant document to the journal is obligatory for studies conducted on humans. The authors should state that they obtained a signed “Informed consent” document from the relevant ethics committee and the study subjects in the Material and Method section of the article.
An “Informed consent” document should be obtained from the patients or if necessary from their legal representatives for case presentations without considering whether the identity of the patient is revealed and this process should be stated in the text under the case presentation part of the article. The “Informed consent” document obtained from the patient or the legal representative should be sent to the journal.

Animal research: Permission should be obtained from the “Experimental Animals Ethics Committee” for research conducted on animals and a copy of the relevant document should be sent to the journal. The Material and Method section of all animal research studies should state that all animals were treated humanely and in accordance with the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (www.nap.edu/catalog/5140.html) and that consent was obtained from the Experimental Animals Ethics Committee. The measures taken to prevent pain and distress of the animals should be clearly stated in such studies. The article will not be published if a copy of the Ethics Committee consent is not sent to the journal.

Permissions: The Mediterranean Journal of Medicine allows articles to be shared according to the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY) International license. Accordingly, the authors and readers may copy, reproduce and adapt the works if they comply with the terms of appropriate attribution, not using the material for commercial purposes, and sharing what they have adapted with the same license. No royalties are paid for articles published in the Journal.

Conflicts of interest: The authors should report any conflicts of interest related to the article. If any direct or indirect commercial connections (such as employment, direct payments, owning shares, company consultancy, patent licensing arrangements, or a service fee) or an institution providing financial support for the study is present, the authors should state that they do not have any commercial relationship with the commercial product or drug used, the company, etc. or explain the relationship if any in the cover letter and also under the title of “Conflict of interest” before the references section of the article. http://icmje.org/conflicts-of-interest/

Authoring contribution: The contributions of the authors (constitution of an opinion, study design, experimental practices, statistics, writing of the article, etc.) in articles with multiple authors should be explained and submitted to the editor with a signed form (within the scope of the copyright transfer form). Authoring contribution information should be reported in the article before the references.

Financial support: Financial support, donations and all other activities (statistical analysis, English/Turkish evaluation) and/or technical help should be clearly stated if present before the references part of the article. The authors should also declare the roles of the sponsors of the study, if any, in the following areas: (1) Design of the study, (2) Data collection, analysis and the interpretation of the results, (3) Writing of the report, (4) Deciding to send the article for publication.

Plagiarism: All articles sent to the Journal go through the iThenticate or Turnitin software and a similarity report is obtained before being accepted to the evaluation process. Articles with a similarity rate of more than 20% are considered to represent plagiarism and are rejected.
The editorial board of the Mediterranean Medical Journal can act in accordance with COPE's rules in case of allegations and suspicions of theft, citation manipulation, and data forgery related to the studies submitted to the Journal.

ETHICAL RESPONSIBILITIES
The aim is to have all stakeholders (authors, editors and reviewers) who put forward a scientific study to contribute to the appropriate advancement of science. Compliance with the scientific ethical principles is important in scientific studies prepared in accordance with this goal.
These principles have been adopted by us and their adoption has also been proposed by various stakeholders, some of which are presented below.
The editorial and publication processes of the Journal have been developed according to the directives of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), Council of Science Editors (CSE), Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), European Association of Science Editors (EASE) and the National Information Standards Organization (NISO). The Journal has adopted the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (doaj.org./bestpractice).

Ethical Responsibilities of the Authors
-To ensure the accuracy of data related to the study, to keep regular records of the research, and to be able to provide access to this data upon a possible request.
- Make sure that the article submitted is not published or accepted elsewhere.
- If the content presented matches any other content published or submitted elsewhere, to acknowledge this match and provide a reference. If necessary, to provide to the editor a copy of any other study that may have similar content related to the work. To obtain permission to reproduce or use any content from other sources, and to provide references.
- For all studies involving human or animal subjects, to ensure compliance with national and international laws and guidelines (for example, the WMA Declaration of Helsinki, NIH Policy on the Use of Laboratory Animals, the EU Directive on the Use of Animals) and indicate that the necessary approvals have been obtained, and to respect the subject's privacy. To specify the relevant ethics committee approvals and research details in the “Materials and Methods” section of the study.
- In case of any conflict of interest, or when an ethical violation related to the article is detected, to share this with the editor and publisher and to publish a statement of error, addendum, or notice of compensation, or to withdraw the work if deemed necessary.

Ethical Duties and Responsibilities of the Editors
- To act in a balanced, objective, and fair manner when performing the duties without discrimination regarding the gender, religious or political beliefs, or the ethnic or geographical origin of the authors.
- To evaluate the work submitted to the Journal according to its content and not act favorably towards any author.
- To take the necessary measures to prevent possible conflicts of interest and evaluate any existing relevant declarations.
- To treat sponsored work or any work on special subjects in the same way as other work.
- To apply the necessary procedures while adhering to the policies and rules of the Journal in case of a complaint related to ethical violation. To provide the authors an opportunity to respond to a received complaint, and not to refrain from enforcing the necessary sanctions no matter who owns the work.
- To refuse received work if it does not meet the purpose and scope of the Journal.

Ethical Responsibilities of the Referees
- To objectively review the article in a timely manner to contribute to the editor's decision-making process and to agree to evaluate only the work related to the field of specialization.
- To make the assessment objectively and only in relation to the content of the study. To evaluate the work without regard to religious, political and economic interests.
- To make recommendations that will help improve the quality of the article to be published and to carefully evaluate the work. To communicate any comments to the author with a constructive and polite style.
- To protect the confidentiality of the information provided by the editor and the author, to destroy in accordance with the privacy principle after the evaluation process the work that has been evaluated, to notify the editor and not evaluate the work if there is anything preventing blind arbitration.
- To be aware of possible conflicts of interest (financial, corporate, collaborative, or other relationships between the authors) and warn the editor to withdraw assistance for this article if necessary.

Some actions considered to violate scientific research and publication ethical principles:
• Plagiarism: Claiming the original ideas, methods, data or work of others as one's own work in part or in whole without providing a reference to them in accordance with scientific rules.
• Forgery: Using data that does not actually exist or is falsified in Scientific Research.
• Distortion: Falsifying research records or the data obtained, making it appear as though devices or materials not used in the research were actually used, falsifying or reshaping research results in the interests of the persons and organizations providing support.
• Republication: Presenting duplicate work as separate publications for academic appointments and promotions.
• Slicing: To present the results of a study as separate publications by improperly dividing them into multiple pieces in a way that violates the integrity of the research and creates several derivatives for academic appointments and promotions.
• Unfair authorship: Including those without an active contribution in the authors list or omitting those with an active contribution, changing the author order in an improper manner and without rationale, removing the names of those with an active contribution in the later revisions, forcing the inclusion of one's name through influence although there is no active contribution.
• Not specifying the person, institution or organizations providing their support and contributions in publications created as a result of research conducted with support.
• To use dissertations or works that have not yet been submitted or defended in front of a jury as sources without the permission of the owner.
• Not complying with ethical rules during research on humans and animals, not respecting the rights of patients in publications, harming animal health and the ecological balance, not obtaining the necessary permissions.
• To use for unrelated purposes the resources, space, facilities and devices provided or allocated for scientific research.
• To make false or misleading statements regarding scientific research and publications for academic appointments and promotions.

The Mediterranean Medical Journal provides open access to scientific publications. Access to the published issue and the full text of the articles within is available free of charge. No fee is requested from the author(s) for publication of their articles.
The readers can download the Journal content for free for academic or educational use. The Journal is free for everyone.