Journal of Health Sciences is the official publication of the Medical Faculty of Erciyes University, Graduate School of Health Sciences. It is published three times yearly. The journal welcomes the submission of the manuscripts directed to clinical and experimental investigations, original case reports, letters to the editor as well as literature reviews in various fields of medicine. The manuscripts sent for consideration for publication are subject to peer review and must not be previously published elsewhere or be under evaluation of another journal. The protocol of the investigations must be approved by the appropriate ethical committee of the related institution. In research work which includes human informed consent must be obtained prior to the study and this should be stated in the text.
The official language of the journal is Turkish or English. In manuscripts, third person singular and passive in general should be used. The words used for chemical substances and other foreign terminology should be spelled as they are pronounced in Turkish. The words that have to be used in a foreign language must be italicised. The integrity of Turkish should be preserved in Turkish manuscript and the manuscript protocols for Turkish should be observed. English manuscript should be clear and error-free. Four copies of the manuscript (One original and three photocopy) must be sent or forwarded to the editorial office.
The journal does not accept responsibility for losses of manuscript or figures. The manuscripts, whether published or not, are not returned to the author. On the other hand, figures or photographs may be returned to the author upon written request. Manuscripts must be prepared according to the regulations stated by the journal. The reason for any manuscript being published considerably later than expected is usually the authors’ mis-understanding of the regulations. Therefore the authors are kindly requested to carefully read the regulations with regard to the submission of the articles. Editorial board, thus reserves the right to reject any article not complying with the stated rules; the board may make the necessary corrections or return the manuscript to the author for correction. Solely the authors are responsible for the content of the manuscript; the journal does not accept any responsibility from the ideas or conclusions made by the authors. The copyright of the published articles belong to the journal. The re-publication of whole or part of the article without written permission of the journal is strickly prohibited. Letters to the editor about any article published are welcome; the editor is free to publish or not publish scientific communications between the authors and the readers. The journal also aims at announcing national or international scientific meetings or symposia in most fields of medicine.
Preparation of the Manuscripts
The manuscripts must be printed on one side of an A4 paper, double-spaced, 12 points and with margins 3 cm on each side. Abbreviations must be made after the first appearence of the related term in the text. When first used, abbreviations must remain in brackets. Numbers between 1-10 must be written with latin characters, those greater than 10 must be written with arabic letters. Numbers in front of the text must be written with latin characters. Original research work and review articles must not exceed (one side of) ten A-4 papers including the text, figures, tables as well as the references whereas case reports must be limited to (one side of ) five A-4 papers. The order of the manuscripts must be as follows; i) for the original research work: Summary, Introduction, Materials (Patients) and Methods, Results, Discussion, ii) for the case reports: Summary, Introduction, Report of the Cases, Discussion. The authors may include any acknowledgments, if there are any, at the end of these sections.
Title page : Full title of the manuscript, the names, the academic degrees and the institutions of the authors as well as any supports for the study must be stated in this section. If the study has previously been presented at any scientific meeting, this should be stated including the dates and place of the meeting. The corresponding author, including home and work address, telephone and fax numbers or e-mail addresses must be written.
Summary : Summary, not exceeding 200 words, must be submitted in each of the English and Turkish language on separate sheets. Summary should include title, purpose, materials and methods, results, conclusions of the research described in the paper. Abbreviations without explanations must should not be used and references or tables not given in this section. Summary page should not contain any information about the authors’ names and addresses.
Keywords: Keywords should be given following the abstract of article in same language including at least three to five keywords. Keywords should be selected and checked from Turkish Scientific Terms and MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) by using Turkish equivalents of index at website below (http://www.bilimterimleri.com)
Tables : Each table or figure must have a legend. Tables and legends must be typewritten on a separate sheets and tables should be numbered consecutively with Roman numerals. The legend must be written on the top of the table.
Figures and Pictures : Figures and pictures should be numbered with Arabic numerals in the order of appearance in the text and prepared on separate sheets. If not prepared with a computer, must be neatly prepared with ink on transparent or white glossy paper. Photographs must be clear, printed in black and white and enclosed in a separate envelope. Figures, graphics and pictures must have the author’s name and the title of the manuscript printed on their back; the top must be stated with an arrow. The size of them must be 7 by 11 cm, not exceeding 9 by 11 cm. For microscopic pictures, the staining technique as well as magnification must be written. Two original sets of pictures wheras one original and one photocopy of the figures and graphics must be included. The Legends for the figures and pictures must be written at the bottom.
References : References should be cited by the number in parenthesis by the order of appearence. The titles of journals must be abbreviated according to the Index Medicus. If the journal does not appear in the Index Medicus, full title of the journal must be written. If there are more than five authors of the article, the first three authors’ names followed by “et al”.
Examples of references
· From the periodicals;
Jennett B, Teasdale G, Fry J, et al. Treatment for severe head injury. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 1980; 43:289-295.
· From the books;
West JB. Respiratory Physiology (2nd ed). Williams and Wilkins, Baltimore 1974; pp 72-75.
· Parts from the books;
Sagawa K.Analysis of the CNS ischemic feed back regulation of the circulation. In: Reeve EB, Guyton AC (eds), Physical Basis of Circulatory Transport. WB Saunders, Philadelphia 1967; pp 129-139.
Note : “In, eds, pp” words are only for English books. Instead of these words for Turkish books “Kitap, yazarlar, ss” words are used, respectively.
· Parts from a translated book;
Berne RM, Levy MN, Koeppen BM, Stanton BA. Physiology (5 th ed). Çeviri: Türk Fizyolojik Bilimler Derneği. Bölüm Çeviri : Aşçıoğlu M. Hipotalamus ve hipofiz bezi. Kitap: Fizyoloji. Güneş Tıp Kitabevleri, Ankara 2008; ss 819-859.
Guyton AC. Textbook of Medical Physiology (7 th ed). Çeviri:Gökhan M, Çavuşoğlu H. Bölüm:Hücre ve fonksiyonları. Kitap:Tıbbi Fizyoloji. Türkçe 2.Baskı. Merk Yayıncılık, İstanbul 1988; Cilt I, ss 15-34
· From the abstract books;
Ayoğlu F, Işık AF, Bumin MA. Gazi Üniversitesi Tıp Fakültesi Acil Servisine başvuran adli vakaların analizi, V. Ulusal Halk Sağlığı Kongresi Bildiri Kitabı, Marmara Üniversitesi, İstanbul 12-16 Ekim 1996; ss 96-100.
· From thesis;
Temel İ. Aflatoxin B1’in Tavşanlarda Bazı Kan Parametre Düzeyleri ve Doku Arginaz Aktiviteleri Üzerine Etkileri. Doktora Tezi, Fırat Üniversitesi. Sağlık Bilimleri Enstitüsü, Elazığ 1993; ss ..
References should be listed in the order of appearance in the text.
The manuscripts must be sent to:
Journal of Health Sciences Editorial Office Erciyes University Graduate Schoolof Health Sciences 38039 Kayseri, Türkiye.
A covering letter must accompany the manuscript. All the authors, in the order of the appearance of their names, must sign a separate consent sheet at the end of the Journal and web addres (http://sagens.erciyes.edu.tr/dergi/izinbelgesi.htm) attached to the covering letter.
Authors may send a 3.5 inch floppy disk which contain their work to the editor in IBM format; word processing softwares, Word 7.0 for the IBM compatibles are accepted.

Ethical Principles and Publication Policy
The publication processes of the Journal of Health Sciences are carried out on the basis of unbiased assessment, development and sharing of the featured scientific articles such as those on clinical and experimental research, authentic case reports, literature compilations in various branches of health. In this context, the ethical rules that the authors, the editors of the journals, referees, and the publisher have to comply with have been presented below. These rules have been designed in line with the guidelines and policies published by the Committee on Publication Ethics - COPE (https://publicationethics.org/))”

Ethical Responsibilities of the Publisher
The Journal of Health Sciences is published by Erciyes University. Its ethical responsibilities are as follows:
• The publisher accepts that the decision making and refereeing processes are the responsibilities of the editor in the process of publishing articles in the journal of health. The publisher provides in the web page of the journal the clear, free of charge, electronic access to the journal.

The Responsibilities of Assistant Editors and Field Editors
• The publication of the manuscripts sent to be published in the Journal of Health Science and the subsequent processes are the responsibility of the editorial committee. The editors and editorial committees should act neutrally, considering public interest while making decisions about the journal and articles to be published.
• The editorial committees of the Journal of Health Sciences should try to continually improve the journal and the quality of its publications.
• The editor and editorial committee should ensure that articles are assessed by the individuals who are expert in their respective fields. The list of referees should continually be innovated according to their field of specialization.
• Care should be taken that there is neither a conflict of interest nor an agreement of mutual interest between the referees to assess the article and the authors. The editor and editorial committee should specify the journal policies such as blind refereeing, assessment process, ethical principles, publishing process, and ensure their implementation. The information regarding the authors and referees should not be made available to both sides.
• The editors and editorial committee should do updating regarding the rules of publication and writing, and present them to authors understandably. Templates should also be updated.
• When writers demand information about the state of their articles, they should be informed without harming the blind refereeing process.
It should be checked that the sending and acceptance dates of the articles should be checked.
• The editors and editorial committee should take care for the preservation of human and animal rights, and they should reject the articles without ethics committee approval.

The Responsibilities of Referees
• It is double-blind refereeing that is used in the article assessment process of the Journal of Health Sciences. Since the referees are not allowed to establish direct relationships with the authors, any demand by the author to make corrections on the article assessment form or on the manuscript has to be made through the editor and/or editorial committee.
Ethical responsibilities of the referees:
• The referees have to accept to assess the articles related to their expertise only.
• Referees have to assess the scientific aspects of the authors’ manuscript irrespective of their races, sexes sexual orientations, religious beliefs, ethnicity, political views, and when assessing they should give importance to confidentiality. •In case of conflict of interest or agreement of mutual interest, referees not only have to refuse to assess the relevant article but also inform the editor of the situation.
• Referees have to use an academic and constructive language and avoid making insult containing personal comments.
• Referees have to transfer, to the editor or editorial committee, within the time alloted, their opinions about the articles they have accepted to assess.

The responsibilities of the author
• The articles sent by the authors to the Journal of Health Sciences for publication have to be unpublished elsewhere or not be sent concurrently to another journal for publication. Only persons who meet these authorship criteria should be listed as authors in the manuscript: (i) made significant contributions to the conception, design, execution, data acquisition, or analysis/interpretation of the study; and (ii) drafted the manuscript or revised it critically for important intellectual content; and (iii) have seen and approved the final version of the paper and agreed to its submission for publication). In articles sent to be published, subsequent addition, removal, or change in the order of the authors’ names should not be requested.
• Authors have to refer, in line with ethical principles, to the sources they have used while preparing their manuscripts.
• Authors have to obtain ethical approval document necessary in their research articles. The name of the ethical committee, the date and number of the approval, have to be remarked in the method section of the article. In addition, the authors have to document their resemblance reports using the program of Ithenticate (http://www.ithenticate.com/). Ethical committee approval is not required for compilations.
• The request for information or raw data regarding the articles to be assessed should be referred to the editor or editorial committee.
• When the authors realize an error in their articles at the stage of early view or in electronic environment, they should inform the editor or editorial committee and correspond with them for the correction or withdrawal of their articles.
Plagiarism and unethical behaviors
Of the manuscripts sent to be published in the Journal of Health Sciences, those with a resemblance ratio of 20% (except for references) are accepted for assessment. The manuscript with resemblance ratio exceeding 20% are studied in detail and, if deemed necessary, returned to their authors to be reviewed or corrected. If plagiarism or unethical behavior is detected, their publication is rejected.
Some unethical behaviors have been listed below:
• Reporting as authors the names of the people who have not mentally contributed to the study. • The article has been generated from the author’s graduate or post-graduate study thesis or from a project, or if has been presented elsewhere, but it is not reported.
• Slicing, i.e. publication of more than one article from one single study.
• Unreported conflict of interest in connection with the articles sent.
• Divulgence of double blind refereeing.