Turkish Medical Journal

Turkish Medical Journal is a general medical journal published on independent, impartial, double-blind review principles. The primary aim of “Turkish Medical Journal " is to publish clinical and experimental research and theoretical articles in the fields of medicine and dentistry, which are scientifically qualified and will make a new contribution to the literature. In addition, it aims to improve practice, contribute to information sharing, and ensure the continuity of education and research. 

Turkish Medical Journal is an open access periodical publishing original, medical, preclinical and clinical research and reviews on all topics related to the fields of general medicine and dentistry. Turkish Medical Journal accepts many types of manuscripts. In addition to original articles, it also publishes short reports, review articles, case reports, letter to the editor, educational articles, literature summaries and congress/meeting impressions.
Turkish Medical Journal is published four (4) times a year every three (3) months in February, May, August and November of each year. Special or additional issues may be published when necessary. The publication language of the journal is Turkish and English. Turkish Medical Journal acts with the principle of double-blind peer-review processes, ensuring appropriate publication time and rapid review within the framework of scientific ethics. The target audience of the journal is researchers working in or interested in the fields of medicine and dentistry.
Turkish Medical Journal is open access and registration, submission and, if accepted, publications of the articles are free of charge. Articles submitted for publication must not have been previously published in another journal. Following the completion of the publication process, the content is made available for free access on the journal's website.  

INSTRUCTION FOR AUTHORS
Preparation of Manuscripts

Manuscripts should be prepared in accordance with ICMJE (Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals) (updated December 2015 - http://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf) standards. Authors should refer to the relevant guidelines according to the type of study. CONSORT (Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials) for randomized trials, STROBE (Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology) for original observational studies, PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) for meta-analyses, PRISMA-NMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses for Network Meta-Analyses) for network meta-analyses and TREND (Transparent Reporting of Evaluations with Non-randomised Designs) for non-randomized behavioral and public health evaluations.
Manuscripts should be submitted only through DergiPark, the online manuscript submission and review system of the journal. Manuscripts submitted through any other medium will not be evaluated. Our journal publishes articles with a similarity rate below 20%. Manuscripts submitted to the journal will first be subjected to a preliminary evaluation process by the Editorial Board in terms of compliance with the journal's writing rules and language. Manuscripts that are not deemed appropriate for publication in the "Turkish Medical Journal", do not fulfill the spelling rules and requirements, or are not sufficient in terms of content will be returned to the authors or rejected at this stage.
The main text of the manuscripts to be submitted to the journal can be prepared in Turkish or English. Turkish and English abstracts should not exceed 300 words. The full text of the manuscripts should be uploaded to the system as a separate file "without author names". At least 6 files must be uploaded to the system for an article. These are;
1) Cover letter
2) Title page
3) Full text with author names deleted (must include abstract, full text, references, tables, images or figures)
4) Completed and signed "Copyright Transfer Form"
5) Plagiarism report (Reports that include both the similarity percentage and show similar sentences processed into the text should be combined and uploaded.)
6) Ethics committee approval form (if required) (For articles that do not require ethics committee approval, a signed document stating "Ethics committee approval is not required" must be uploaded)


In addition to these 6 files, additional material, image or graphic files should also be uploaded to the system if necessary. Authors can communicate about the article submission and evaluation process through the system.

After the article is uploaded to the system, the publishing team checks whether the article has been sent in accordance with the spelling rules of the journal, and if there is a file that is not uploaded in accordance with the spelling rules, it is sent back to the author and requested to be made in accordance with the spelling rules.
After the first control phase, the article is examined by the editors and the referee evaluation process is initiated for the articles deemed appropriate. Revisions may be requested from authors in line with the suggestions of referees and editors. If a revision is requested from the author, he/she is expected to respond to each revision suggestion one by one. The author should create a "Response to the Reviewer" file containing his/her answers to the revision suggestions and add it to the system together with the revised files using the "Add Additional File" tab. Since more than one revision suggestion may be sent to the authors, the "Response to the Reviewer " file should be uploaded again during each revision process, and these files should be re-uploaded to the system by adding the symbol indicating the number of revision such as R1, R2, etc. to the header of the file, without deleting the previous one each time.

Submission Type

Turkish Medical Journal accepts original articles as well as many types of manuscripts including short reports, review articles, case reports, letters to the editor, educational articles, literature summaries and congress/meeting impressions.
-Research Articles: Turkish Medical Journal accepts original clinical (conditions that may be a focus of clinical attention) or experimental (human, animal or in-vitro) research articles in all fields. These articles may include randomized controlled trials, observational studies (cohort, case-controlled or cross-sectional), diagnostic accuracy studies, systematic reviews and meta-analyses, non-randomized behavioral and public health intervention studies, experimental animal studies or other clinical and experimental studies.
-Case reports and case series: Turkish Medical Journal publishes original, educational or rare case reports and case series.
-Reviews: Turkish Medical Journal publishes clinical reviews written for clinicians on the natural course of diseases, current diagnostic and therapeutic approaches, basic science reviews on the scientific basis of the mechanism and treatment of diseases, and current reviews on new drugs and devices.
-Short reports: Publishes research data that can make a significant contribution in the relevant field in a short and concise manner. Short reports should include a title in Turkish and English, a one-paragraph abstract in Turkish and English, and keywords in Turkish and English. Short reports should include at most two tables and one figure/graphic/picture. There is no need to prepare a segmented abstract.
Manuscript Preparation
- Research articles should be less than 4000, systematic reviews and meta-analyses should be less than 5000, and case reports should be less than 2500 words (excluding abstracts/tables/figures/references). All manuscripts except the first page should have page numbers in the lower right corner. The manuscript should contain appropriate number and content of tables and figures necessary for the understanding of the subject. Manuscripts should contain a maximum of five tables and 3 figures.
- General Format: All manuscripts should be written in A4 size, and the margins of the page should be 2.5 cm from the top, bottom and sides. References should be arranged according to the order of citation in the article. All of the text, including references, tables and figure legends, should be written with 1.5 line spacing, justified on both sides and using 12-point font. Whenever possible, "Times New Roman" 10-point font should be used for footnotes, symbols and other special characters. Explanations of abbreviations should be given where they are first used, followed by the abbreviation in parentheses. Abbreviations used in the article should be internationally accepted.
- Case presentations should be organized under the headings of introduction, case presentation and discussion after the abstract.
- Sections of the manuscript: All research articles should be written in accordance with the following headings:
- Letter of application: Authors should indicate the title of the manuscript, the type of manuscript, and whether the submitted work has been previously presented at a scientific meeting. The submission letter should include a statement that the manuscript will not be published or considered for publication elsewhere while it is under review by Turkish Medical Journal. Contact information, including full name, address, telephone number and e-mail address of the corresponding author should be provided at the bottom of the submission letter. The submission letter should be signed by the author responsible for the correspondence, scanned and submitted in jpg or pdf format together with the other files of the manuscript.
- Cover Page: The cover page is prepared as a separate electronic file containing the following elements. Information should be provided in this file in the following order:
- Title of the manuscript (in Turkish and English, descriptive and without any abbreviations): The title of the article should be as short and descriptive as possible; all words in the title should begin with a capital letter (except conjunctions), should be in bold font, and should be placed in the center of the page. For Turkish articles, the title should be written in both Turkish and English. Abbreviations should never be used in the title of the article.
- Full names and institutions of all authors should be clearly written and no academic title should be used.
- The cover page should include the institutional information of all authors (name of the institution, city and country).
- Authors should be identified by the designators "1" "2" "3" in the upper right corner of the author's name and at the beginning of each institution.
- The author responsible for correspondence should be indicated in the article, marked with "*", and his/her name, e-mail address and telephone number should be indicated.
- ORCID numbers of all authors should be included on this page.
- If available, the place and date of the scientific meeting where the study was presented should be indicated.
- If any financial support was received for the study, it should be indicated.
- Abstract: Turkish and English abstracts should be written on separate pages after the title page. Turkish and English abstracts should contain a maximum of 300 words and should be formatted according to the following headings: (1) Objective, (2) Method, (3) Results, (4) Discussion. Under the above headings, the subject of the article, how the study was conducted, the main findings and the conclusions drawn by the authors from these findings should be briefly presented. Abstracts of case reports and reviews should not have any sub-headings. Abstracts should use as few abbreviations as possible and should not include references.
- Keywords: English keywords should be a maximum of six in accordance with Medical Subject Headings (MeSH). Turkish keywords should be a maximum of six in accordance with Turkish Scientific Terms.
- Introduction: Briefly, the purpose of the study should be written together with the available data on the topic under investigation. The originality of the subject and its contribution to the literature should be addressed.
- Materials and Methods: How the study was conducted, how the participants were selected and which methods were used should be written in detail in this section. New or modified methods used should be described in detail. Doses, concentrations, route and duration of administration of drugs and chemical agents should be specified. Ethics committee approval (the name of the ethics committee should be concealed, date of approval, issue number) should be stated. For studies requiring administrative permission, the permission obtained from the relevant authorities should be indicated. Under a subheading in the Methods section, all statistical methods used, including summarizing the data, testing the hypothesis and the level of statistical difference based on the tests, should be written briefly and concisely. The software used should be described.
- Findings: Findings should be written in a logical order and as detailed as possible in the text, supported by figures and tables, and the information given in figures and tables should not be repeated in the text unless necessary.
- Discussion: The primary and secondary results of the study should be briefly presented and compared with similar and different findings in the literature. Limitations and strengths of the study should be mentioned in this section.
- Conclusion: The conclusions and recommendations reached in the study should be summarized in this section. Inferences that are not supported by the results of the study should be avoided.
- Conflict of Interest: Under this heading all potential conflicts of interest and areas of competition, if any, should be declared. All relationships with pharmaceutical companies, biomedical device manufacturers or other companies with services or products related to the subject of the article should be clearly stated. If there is no conflict of interest, the statement "no conflict of interest" should be written in this section.
- Financial support: Under this heading, the names of the funds or organizations supporting the study, if any, should be written.
- Acknowledgments: The names of individuals who contributed to the study but do not meet the criteria for authorship should be given in this section. The approval of all individuals mentioned should be obtained.
-Author contribution: The role of each author in the manuscript must be stated. Each author must contribute to at least three of the tasks specified in the copyright transfer form.
- References: The number of references can be maximum 50 in research articles and maximum 30 in case reports. The maximum number of references can be 30 for short literature reviews and/or case series and 80 for reviews (excluding systematic reviews and meta-analyses, there is no number of references limit for those). References should be written according to "APA" citation format in the order of occurrence in the manuscript. Examples of APA citation formats for different types of references can be found here.

- Figures: Figures should be prepared and uploaded separately from the full text file. Each figure should be presented on separate pages within its own file. X-rays, CT, MRI films and other diagnostic imaging and photographs of pathologic specimens can be saved as an electronic file in JPEG or GIF format that will create a high resolution image (at least 300 DPI). The letters, numbers and symbols on the images should be clear and uniform throughout the manuscript and of a size that can be read even when reduced for publication. As far as possible, images should be understandable on their own. If a patient photograph is to be used, written permission must be obtained from the patient or legally responsible relative. The maximum number of figures and pictures can be three.
- Tables: Tables should be prepared and uploaded separately from the full text file. Each table or figure should be presented on separate pages within its own file. Each table should be given a short title. Explanations should be made in footnotes, not in the title. All non-standard abbreviations should be explained in the footnotes. Make sure that each table is cited in the text. If the tabular data or figures are taken from another published source, the necessary permissions should be obtained. Manuscripts should contain a maximum of five tables.
Evaluation of Articles
- Uploading the manuscript to the Turkish Medical Journal system means that it has not been previously published (except as an abstract or as part of a presentation, review or thesis), that it is not intended to be published elsewhere, and that publication in the Turkish Medical Journal has been approved by all authors.
- Manuscripts deemed appropriate by the editorial board are sent to referees for further evaluation. Correction(s) may be requested from the author(s) according to the referee reports and editorial evaluation results. All changes suggested by the referees or the editorial board should be responded severally and the changes should be indicated in the text when uploading revised manuscripts. Acceptance of manuscripts is subject to the journal's editorial policies regarding originality, ethics, scientific content and subject matter. All objections and requests should be notified to the editors in writing. The Editorial Board is authorized to make corrections in the text without changing the essence of the manuscript when deemed necessary.
- Turkish Medical Journal has adopted a double-blind review process for the evaluation of manuscripts. Manuscripts deemed appropriate by the Editorial Board are sent to relevant referees whose names are kept confidential. The editorial board is authorized to appoint referees. The Editorial Board takes into account the referee reports and many other factors.
Accepted articles and publication process:
- Accepted manuscripts are subject to editorial revisions and copyediting. The pre-print proof of the manuscript is sent to the author responsible for the correspondence and requested to be checked and sent back to the journal within two days. Accepted manuscripts are queued for publication with the approval of the Editorial Board and published online as soon as possible. 

ETHICAL PRINCIPLES
Our journal adopts the principles declared by the Comitee on Publication Ethics (COPEⓒ) in all its processes. The journal has selected the articles according to this committee principles.
The authors can share more detailed information through the following links: https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Guidelines, https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Flowchart, https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Case.
It is crucial that the research doesn’t violate the human and animal rights. Ethical committee approval based on the Declaration of Helsinki must be obtained from the authorities (universities, institutes, Ministry of Health, etc.) for all the studies that include people or animals.
In the Material and Method section of the article, an explanation regarding the informed consent, name of the ethics committee, approval date and ethics committee approval number should be written.
In animal studies, the measures taken to prevent animal pain and suffering should be clearly stated.
It is the responsibility of the authors to carefully protect the anonymity of patients.
For photographs that may reveal the identity of the patients, signed consent documents of the patient or legal representative should be attached.
In the ethics committee approval document; All authors of the study must be included. Anyone who is not included in the ethics committee as a part of the publication will not be allowed to take part unmerited in the study. Along with the ethics committee document, it should be clearly stated in which part of the study each researcher took part.
In all studies submitted to the journal, the authors are responsible for any violation in terms of plagiarism, multiple publications (duplication) or Salami slicing (salamization). Authors should also add plagiarism reports to the system when submitting the application.
Any article not meeting the COPEⓒ criteria will not be published.
Editorial and publication processes of the journal are formatted according to 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 National Information Standards Organization (NISO) organizations.
In addition, these processes are carried out in accordance with Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (doaj.org/bestpractice).
Submitted articles are evaluated for their originality and scientific quality.
Submitted articles must not have been previously presented or published in another electronic or printed journal, or other medium.
In case the articles were sent to another journal before but not accepted, it is recommended that our journal is informed.
Sending the old referee reports of these articles to the Editorial Board will accelerate the evaluation process.
ETHICS FOR AUTHORS
• Authors and researchers are deemed to have accepted all kinds of ethical principles and related written documents in advance.
• The research should be conducted by responsible and competent people, and non-experts should not be allowed to participate.
• The purpose of the research, the implementation process, possible risks and benefits should be explained to the participants.
• Participants' right to participate in the research, or to withdraw at any time, should be respected.
• If the participants are under the age of 18, information about the research is given to the participants themselves and their parents (guardians), and if the participants do not have the power to decide for any reason (mental disability, illness, dementia, etc.), the legal guardian (guardian) of the participant should. Informed consent forms should be completed and signed by the person himself, if he is over 18 years old, or by a parent/guardian if he is a minor.
• Care should be taken to ensure that the information in the informed consent forms is clear and understandable according to the age of the participants.
• Information of the participants, like personal data or that may cause their identities to be exposed should be kept confidential.
• No one should be deprived of their right to participate in research unless there is a just and acceptable reason.
• No participant should be deprived of their rights or be harmed by not participating in or withdrawing from the research.
• If there are applications different from the initial explanations during the research process, the participants should be informed about the new situation.
• Content and method/data collection tools (questionnaire, interview, etc.); should not include negative features like humiliating, discriminating, disturbing, tiring, disruptive, etc.
• The possibility of negative effects of the applications in the process of experimental research on the participants should be minimized.
• To the participants; Information about the purpose of the research, expected benefits, how it will be conducted, possible risks, confidentiality policy and what is expected should be given.
• These explanations should not affect the participants' behavior regarding the research and their responses to the data collection tools.
• The name, address and telephone number of the researcher or research team leader should be stated in this letter. If the research will be carried out in an institution, the written approval of the relevant institution managers must be obtained.
• If the application made to one application group is more effective than the applications to other groups; After the end of the research, all groups should be given the chance to benefit from this practice.
• The researcher is obliged to ensure that the data collected during and after the research is protected and stored in accordance with the confidentiality rule.
• In co-authored studies, everyone's roles and responsibilities should be clearly defined. The level of contribution of the shared tasks should be clearly stated and the corresponding author order should be established. In principle, those who have contributed significantly to the research and reporting should be co-authors.
• It should not show unethical behaviors such as Scientific Misleading, Scientific Negligence/Undisciplined Research, Scientific Distortion/Deliberate Fraud, Distortion, Concealment, Fabrication, Scientific Stealing, Complete Stealing, Scientific Piracy, Self-Picturing, Duplication, Slicing, Sibling Publication, and No Attribution.
• When making use of the ideas, discourses, opinions, data, comments, evaluations, suggestions, publications, drawings and applications of others, permissions and sources should be clearly indicated.
• A researcher who uses a table or figure in a source as it is, should clearly indicate the original source under the relevant table or figure.
• In addition to citing sources, copyright etc. Where required by legal obligations, permission must be obtained from the person or organization holding the copyright.
• Ethical rules regarding author names should be followed in articles. Author names and order should be determined by the contribution made to the study. The ranking on the published work expresses this contribution. In co-authored studies, all authors are scientifically and ethically responsible for the entire work.
• It is not ethically appropriate to include people who do not contribute actively or not to include contributors, to change the order of authors without justification and inappropriately, to remove the names of those who contributed actively from the work in subsequent editions, to include their names among the authors even though they do not have an active contribution, by using their influence.
• Thesis or studies that have not yet been presented or defended should not be used as a source without the permission of the owner.
• In the works, the addresses of the institutions/organizations must be given correctly and completely.
• If a research has been financially supported by a particular institution or person, the source of the financial support must be specified in the research report. Sometimes the number of institutions providing financial support can be more than one. In this case, all supporting institutions should be specified.
EDITORIAL CODE FOR EDITORS
In the evaluation process of a submitted work, the scientific ethical principles that the editors must comply with are as follows:
• Working; without prejudice (regarding race, religion, nationality, gender, opinion, affiliation, institutional or personal affinity), impartial, objective and independent.
• Negligently or deliberately delaying the evaluation process.
• It should take into account whether the study is carried out in accordance with ethical rules.
• Members of the editorial board should not exchange information about the study with people other than the referees and authors.
• The referee should not make any changes on the reports, and should not issue false reports, use the work in their own research before the work is published; should not allow others to use it.
• At any stage of the evaluation and publication process, the authors should not give false information that may have positive or negative meanings.
• Double-blind evaluation is carried out under the responsibility of the editor.
ETHICAL RULES ABOUT REFEREES
In the evaluation process of a submitted study, the scientific ethical principles that the referees must comply with are as follows:
• Working; without prejudice (regarding race, religion, nationality, gender, opinion, affiliation, institutional or personal affinity), impartial, objective and independent.
• In cases where they cannot or do not want to evaluate the work due to conflict of interest, personal or professional affinity, conflict of interest and time constraint; should return the work to the editor or the chairman of the board as soon as possible.
• They should not exchange information about the study with people/authors other than the editor or the chairman of the board who sent the study to him.
• They are responsible for ensuring that the data related to the work are protected and stored in accordance with the confidentiality rule.
• It should be taken into account whether the study is carried out in accordance with ethical rules. They should share the ethical problem of the article with the editor.
• They should express their opinions, evaluations and suggestions about the study in a clear and understandable way and should support them with literature data when necessary. They should clearly state their comments and suggestions and should not use general expressions.
• The journal does not accept sponsorship or advertising in accordance with its publication policies.
Publications are licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC 4.0). The journal's policy is based on scientific contribution and does not allow commercial use of publications. CC's NonCommercial (NC) licenses prohibit uses that are "primarily directed toward or intended for commercial advantage or monetary compensation." At this point, authors sign an exclusive license agreement in which they own the copyright but license exclusive rights in their article to the publisher. This means that by special agreement the publisher has the right to make and authorize commercial use. Publications can be used or shared in whole or in part, provided that the journal and authors are cited.

PUBLICATION POLICY
Our journal adopts the principles declared by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPEⓒ) in all its processes. Publications are handled within this scope. Authors can access more detailed information on this issue through the links https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Guidelines, https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Flowcharts, https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Case.
It is essential that human and animal rights are not violated in studies. In studies in which human participants or animal subjects are used, ethics committee approval based on the Declaration of Helsinki must be obtained from the authorities authorized to give ethical approval (universities, institutes, Ministry of Health, etc.) in accordance with the research method. In the materials and methods section of the manuscript, an explanation of informed consent, the name of the ethics committee, and the date and number of ethics committee approval should be provided.
In studies on animals, the measures taken to prevent pain and suffering of the animals must be clearly stated. It is the authors' responsibility to carefully protect the anonymity of patients. For photographs that may reveal the identity of patients, signed permission from the patient or legal representative must be attached.
The ethics committee approval document must include all authors mentioned in the study. It should not be allowed for someone who is not named in the ethics committee to take part in the publication unfairly within the scope of gift authorship or in line with other interest relations. With the ethics committee document, it should be clearly stated in which part of the study the researchers took part.
All manuscripts submitted to the journal must be free of plagiarism, duplication and salamization, and authors are responsible for this. Authors should include their plagiarism reports when submitting the publication.
No study contrary to the principles of COPEⓒ may be published in this journal.
The editorial and publication processes of the journal are structured in accordance with the guidelines 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 National Information Standards Organization (NISO). In addition, these processes are carried out in accordance with the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (doaj.org/bestpractice).
Submitted articles are evaluated for originality and scientific quality. The submitted manuscripts must not have been previously presented or published in any other electronic or printed journal, book or other medium. It is recommended that the journal be informed about manuscripts that have been previously submitted to another journal but not accepted for publication. Sending the old referee reports of these manuscripts to the Editorial Board will speed up the evaluation process.

PRICE POLICY
No fee is charged from the author or institution under any name.
Our journal has adopted the Open Access Policy and no fee is charged from the authors, including evaluation and publication, for the publications sent to our journal.