INSTRUCTIONS FOR AUTHOR

The Turkish Journal of Health Science and Life accepts, original research articles, case reports and review articles that are relevant to the scope of Basic medical, Internal Medicine and Surgical Sciences, Nursing, Health Management, Midwifery, Emergency Aid and Disaster Management, on the condition that they have not been previously published elsewhere. All manuscripts are subject to editorial revision to ensure they conform to the style adopted by the journal. There is a double blind kind of reviewing system.

To insure a timely publication process, authors are asked to read the following instructions carefully.

ETHICS

The authors are responsible for their compliance with the ethical rules. Investigations on human subjects should conform to accepted ethical standards. Fully informed consent should be obtained and noted in the manuscript. For all manuscripts dealing with experimental work involving human subjects, specify that informed consent was obtained following a full explanation of the procedure (s) undertaken. Patients should be referred to by number; do not use real names or initials.

In experimental studies on animals, it should be noted that the study protocol has been approved by the animal experiment ethics committee at the institution where the study was conducted. Authors should submit the ethics committee's approval with the article. If there are previously published text, tables, pictures, etc. in the article, the authors have to get written permission from the copyright holder and the authors should specify and indicate the used material in the manuscript. In the course of the manuscript evaluation, the authors may be requested to submit the research data and / or the ethics committee approval document if deemed necessary.

STYLE OF MANUSCRIPTS

The articles submitted for publication must not have been published in print or in an electronic format or should not be in the evaluation stage for publication in another publication or electronic medium at the time of publication. Should it be accepted, it should not be published in any form or in a similar form in any languages.  Poster or oral presentations or preliminary work submitted in congress, symposium or electronic media may be published provided that this is indicated. Authors who wish to withdraw their articles for delay or for any reason need to apply with a written notice of the situation.

All contributions should be written in English. Spelling should be American English. Prior to submission, manuscripts prepared by authors whose native language is not English should be edited for proper spelling, grammar, and syntax by a professional editor or colleague fluent in English.

All the articles should be written in Microsoft Word software with Times New Roman font, 12 pt., 1.5 line spacing, 2.5 cm space on page edges, A4 paper size (210 x 297 mm), single column and side by side. In addition, page numbers should be given so that the number of each page except the first page is in the upper middle. Abbreviations should be explained in the text, tables, figures and graphics in the first appeared place.

Manuscripts not following Instruction to Authors will be returned to the authors.

MANUSCRIPTS CATEGORIES

Original research articles: These are original studies that reach a conclusion based on sufficient scientific investigation, observation and experimentation.

Case reports: A case report should describe a new disease, or confirmation of a rare or new disease; a new insight into pathogenesis, etiology, diagnosis, or treatment.

Review articles: Reviews should document and synthesize current information on timely subjects.

However, the Copyright Status Form should be sent by regular mail within 2 weeks of submission of article

The manuscript should be arranged as follows, with each section beginning on a separate page.

Title page

The title should provide important information regarding the manuscript’s content.  The title page should include the category, the title (Turkish-English with capital letters), the authors’ names(only the first letters capital), the degrees and a short title, abbreviations, keywords, financial disclosure statement, and conflict of interest statement. If a manuscript includes authors from more than one institution, each author’s name should be followed by a superscript number that corresponds to their institution, which is listed separately. Please provide contact information for the corresponding author, including name, e-mail address, and telephone and fax numbers. If the article was previously presented at a scientific meeting, the name, date and place of the meeting must be stated.

Abstract and Keywords

The second page should include an abstract that does not exceed 250 words. For manuscripts sent by authors in Turkey, a title and abstract in Turkish are also required. As most readers read the abstract first, it is critically important. Moreover, as various electronic databases integrate only abstracts into their index, important findings should be presented in the abstract. Immediately after the abstract, provide a maximum of 5 keywords, using general and plural terms and multiple concepts (avoid, for example, 'and', 'of'). 

Manuscript

Original research articles should be included introduction, materials and method, results, discussion and conclusion. The introduction should include an overview of the relevant literature presented in summary form and what ever remains interesting, unique, problematic, relevant, or unknown about the topic must be specified. Materials and methods should be written as detailed as possible and may be divided into subparts if more than one method is used. However, there is no need to elaborate the classical and frequently used methods. If a brand is specified, the manufacturer's name and address (city, country) should be given. Describe the statistical methods used in enough detail to enable a knowledgeable reader with access to the original data to verify the reported results. Statistically important data should be given in the text, tables and figures. In the results section, the results of the study and the basic recommendations should be reported without recurring findings. Findings can be presented as text, table, graphic and figure. The discussion section should include a discussion of the data. New and important findings/results, and the conclusions they lead to should be emphasized. Link the conclusions with the goals of the study, but avoid unqualified statements and conclusions not completely supported by the data. Do not repeat the findings/results in detail; important findings/results should be compared with those of similar studies in the literature, along with a summarization. In other words, similarities or differences in the obtained findings/results with those previously reported should be discussed. After discussion section,the conclusion of the study should be highlighted.

Reviews should include introduction, text, and conclusion titles.

Case reports should include introduction, case / cases and discussion sections.

Tables and Figures

Tables should be created with a word processor and saved in either DOC or DOCX format. Do not embed tables and figures in your text. Each table and figures must be submitted as a separate file. All illustrations should be referred to as figures and numbered in Arabic numerals (Fig. 1, 2, etc.). Image resolution must be at least 300 dpi for raster images (e.g., photographs, gels, stains) and 600 dpi for line-art images (e.g., charts and graphs). Image-related text and labeling must be clearly legible, a font size of 10 points or greater should be present in the final image. To ensure the highest print quality, your figures must be submitted in TIF or JPG format. Legends for figures must be typed with double spacing on separate pages.

References

References should be organized in accordance with the "Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals" developed by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). Examples of frequently used references in this framework are given below. For other reference formats not mentioned here, the relevant website should be used as a guide http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html. Each reference must be numbered separately according to the order of use and the numbers must be specified in parentheses at the end of the text. The author (s) is/are responsible for the correctness of the references. Journal titles are given in abbreviated form in accordance with Index Medicus. For abbreviations of journal titles, see the list of journals indexed in Index Medicus or see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/journals. No abbreviation is used for journal names that do not enter the index. Only articles that are published or at the publication stage may be shown at the references. When the article references are given, the DOI and PMID numbers of the sources should be added at the end of the references.

Examples of References: 
1. List all authors.
Deeg HJ, O’Donnel M, Tolar J. Optimization of conditioning for marrow transplantation from unrelated donors for patients with aplastic anemia after failure immunosuppressive therapy. Blood 2006;108:1485-1491. 
2. Organization as author
Royal Marsden Hospital Bone Marrow Transplantation Team. Failure of syngeneic bone marrow graft without preconditioning in post-hepatitis marrow aplasia. Lancet 1977;2:742-744. 
3. Book 
Wintrobe MM. Clinical Hematology, 5th ed. Philadelphia, Lea & Febiger, 1961. 
4. Book Chapter 
Perutz MF. Molecular anatomy and physiology of hemoglobin. In: Steinberg MH, Forget BG, Higs DR, Nagel RI, (eds). Disorders of Hemoglobin: Genetics, Pathophysiology, Clinical Management. New York, Cambridge University Press, 2000. 
5. Abstract 
Drachman JG, Griffin JH, Kaushansky K. The c-Mpl ligand (thrombopoietin) stimulates tyrosine phosphorylation. Blood 1994;84:390a (abstract). 
6. Letter to the Editor
Rao PN, Hayworth HR, Carroll AJ, Bowden DW, Pettenati MJ. Further definition of 20q deletion in myeloid leukemia using fluorescence in situ hybridization. Blood 1994;84:2821-2823. 
7. Supplement
Alter BP. Fanconi’s anemia, transplantation, and cancer. Pediatr Transplant. 2005;9(Suppl 7):81-86

Acknowledged

Research or project support should be acknowledged as a footnote on the title page.

Publication Ethics: The publication process at Turkish Journal of Health Sciences and Life is the basis of the improvement and dissemination of information objectively and respectfully. Therefore, the procedures in this process improves the quality of the studies. Peer-reviewed studies are the ones that support and materialize the scientific method. At this point, it is of utmost importance that all parties included in the publication process (authors, readers and researchers, publisher, reviewers and editors) comply with the standards of ethical considerations. The journal expects all parties to hold the following ethical responsibilities.
Ethical Responsibilities of Authors: The authors who submit their manuscripts to Turkish Journal of Health Sciences and Life are expected to comply with the following ethical responsibilities:
Author(s) must submit original studies to the journal. If they utilize or use other studies, they must make the in-text and end-text references accurately and completely.
People who have not contributed to the study at the intellectual level should not be indicated as author.
If the manuscripts submitted to be published are subject of conflicting interests or relations, these must be explained.
During the review process of their manuscripts, author(s) may be asked to supply raw data. In such a case, author(s) should be ready to submit such data and information to the editorial and scientific boards.
Author(s) should document that they have the participants' consent and the necessary permissions related to the sharing and research/analysis of the data that are used.
Author(s) bears the responsibility to inform the editor of the journal or publisher if they happen to notice a mistake in their study which is in early release or publication process and to cooperate with the editors during the correction or withdrawal process.
Authors cannot submit their studies to multiple journals simultaneously. Each submission can be made only after the previous one is completed. A study published in another journal cannot be submitted to Turkish Journal of Health Sciences and Life
Author responsibilities are given in a study (e.g.: adding an author, reordering of author names) whose review process has begun cannot be changed.
Ethical Responsibilities of Editors: The editor and field editors of Turkish Journal of Health Sciences and Life should hold the following ethical responsibilities that are based on the guides "COPE Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors" and "COPE Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors" published as open Access by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
General Duties and Responsibilities: Editors are responsible for each study published in the Turkish Journal of Health Sciences and Life. In this respect, the editors have the following roles and responsibilities:
•Making efforts to meet the demand for knowledge from readers and authors,
•Ensuring the continuous development of the journal,
• Managing the procedures aimed to improve the quality of the studies published in the journal,
•Supporting freedom of expression,
•Ensuring academic integrity,
• Following the procedures without making concessions on intellectual property rights and ethical standards,
• Being transparent and clear in issues that require correction or explanation.
Relationships with Readers: Editors must make decisions taking into consideration the knowledge, skills and expectations of all readers, researchers and practitioners need. They must also ensure that the published studies contribute to the literature and be original. Moreover, they must take notice of the feedback received from researchers and practitioners and provide explanatory and informative feedback.
Relationships with Authors: Editors have the following duties and responsibilities in their relations with authors:
• Editors must make positive or negative decisions about the studies' importance, originality, validity, clarity in wording and suitability with the journal's aims and objectives.
• Editors must accept the studies that are within the scope of the publication into the pre-review process unless there are serious problems with the study.
• Editors must not ignore positive suggestions made by reviewers unless there are serious problems with the study.
• New editors, unless there are serious issues, must not change the previous editor's decisions about the studies.
• “Blind Review and Review Process” must be published and editors must prevent possible diversions in the defined processes.
• Editors must publish an “Authors Guide” that is comprehensive enough in answering queries by authors. This guide must be updated regularly.
• Authors should be provided with explanatory and informative feedback.
Relationships with Reviewers: Editors have the following duties and responsibilities in their relations with reviewers:
• choose reviewers according to the subject of the study.
• provide the information and guidance reviewers may need during the review process.
• observe whether there are conflicting interests between reviewers and authors.
• keep the identities of reviewers confidential in a blind review.
• encourage the reviewers to review the manuscript in an unbiased, scientific and objective tone.
• evaluate reviewers regularly based on criteria like performance and timing.
• develop practices and policies that increase the performance of reviewers.
• take necessary steps to update the reviewer pool dynamically.
•prevent unkind and unscientific reviews.
• make effort to ensure the reviewer pool has a wide range.
Relationships with the Editorial Board: Editors must make sure that the members of the editorial board follow the procedures in accordance with the publication policies and guidelines, and must inform the members about the publication policies and developments. The editors must also train new members of the editorial board and provide the information they need. Moreover, editors must
• ensure that the members of the editorial board review the manuscripts in an unbiased and independent manner.
• select the new members of the editorial board from those who can contribute to the journal and are qualified enough.
• send manuscripts for review based on the subject of expertise of the editorial board members.
• regularly communicate with the editorial board.
• arrange regular meetings with the editorial board for the development of publication policies and the journal.
Relationships with the Journal's Owner and Publisher: The relationship between the editors and publisher is based on the principle of the independence of editors. All the decisions made by the editors are independent of the publisher and the owner of the journal as required by the agreement made between editors and publisher.
Editorial and Blind Review Processes: Editors are obliged to comply with the policies of “Blind Review and Process” stated in the journal's publication policies. Therefore, the editors ensure that each manuscript is reviewed in an unbiased, fair and timely manner.
Quality Assurance: Editors must make sure that articles in the journal are published in accordance with the publication policies of the journal and international standards.
Protection of Personal Information: Editors are supposed to protect the personal information related with the subjects or visuals in the studies being reviewed, and to reject the study if there is no documentation of the subjects' consent. Furthermore, editors are supposed to protect the personal information of the authors, reviewers and readers.
Encouraging Ethical Rules and Protection of Human and Animal Rights: Editors are supposed to protect human and animal rights in the studies being reviewed and must reject the experimental studies which do not have ethical and related committee’s approval about the population given in such studies.
Precautions against possible Abuse and Malpractice: Editors are supposed to take precautions against possible abuse and malpractice. They must conduct investigations meticulously and objectively in determining and evaluating complaints about such situations. They must also share the results of the investigation.
Ensuring Academic Integrity: Editors must make sure that the mistakes, inconsistencies or misdirection in studies are corrected quickly.
Protection of Intellectual Property Rights: Editors are responsible for protecting the intellectual property rights of all the articles published in the journal and the rights of the journal and author(s) in cases where these rights are violated. Also, editors must take the necessary precautions in order to prevent the content of all published articles from violating the intellectual property rights of other publications.
Constructiveness and Openness to Discussion: Editors must
• pay attention to the convincing criticism about studies published in the journal and must have a constructive attitude towards such criticism.
• grant the right of reply to the author(s) of the criticized study.
• not ignore or exclude the study that includes negative results.
Complaints: Editors must examine the complaints from authors, reviewers or readers and respond to them in an explanatory and enlightening manner.
Conflicting Interests: Editors, acknowledging that there may be conflicting interests between reviewers and other editors, guarantee that the publication process of the manuscripts will be completed in an independent and unbiased manner
Ethical Responsibilities of Reviewers: The fact that all manuscripts are reviewed through “Blind Review” has a direct influence on the publication quality. This process ensures confidentiality by an objective and independent review. The review process at Turkish Journal of Health Sciences and Life is carried out on the principle of double-blind review. Reviewers do not contact the authors directly, and the reviews and comments are conveyed through the journal management system. In this process, the reviewer views on the evaluation forms and full texts are assigned to the author(s) by the editor.
Unethical Behavior: Should you encounter any unethical act or content in Turkish Journal of Health Sciences and Life apart from the ethical responsibilities listed above, please notify the journal.