Health Sciences Quarterly

Health Sciences Quarterly (HSQ) is an open-access journal that publishes original research papers, case reports, and reviews, clinical studies covering a wide range of subjects in life sciences and medicine as well as clinical and experimental investigations only in English.

Researchers in health sciences will find much of great use and interest in the HSQ.

HSQ aims to supply scientists of health with resources in order to provide the scientific knowledge through the publication of peer-reviewed, high quality, scientific papers and other material on all topics related to Medicine, Pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences, Dentistry, Nursing, Bioethics, History of medicine, Health economics, Pharmacoeconomics, Medical education, Public health, and Epidemiology.

Instruction for authors
The authors are cordially invited to submit significant new findings of their papers in word format to the journal office via online submission along with a Health Sciences Quarterly (HSQ) cover letter. The journal will cover the topics related to the fields of health sciences. All manuscripts submitted for publication are evaluated by the editor-in-chief, section editor(s), editorial board, and referees. The original research papers, letter to the editor, debates, case reports and reviews only in English are published in the journal. By submission of a manuscript, an author certifies that the study is original and is not being considered simultaneously by other journals. All articles are subjected to critical reviews by referees.

Format

A regular paper should describe new and carefully confirmed findings, and experimental procedures should be given in sufficient detail for readers to verify the study. The length of a full paper should be the minimum required to describe and interpret the study clearly. The total length of any manuscript submitted must not exceed 25 pages. The manuscripts should be written in a clear, concise language (English) using a word processor. MS Word for Windows and .docfiles are preferred. Manuscripts may be prepared with other software provided that the main text (with figures, schemes, and tables inserted into the text) is exported to an MS Word format for submission. Do not use desktop publishing software such as Aldus PageMaker or Quark XPress. If the manuscript has been prepared with one of these programs, it should be exported the text to a word processing format. Times New Roman font is preferred. The font size should be 12 pt. for headings and 11 pt. for text. The first line of the paragraph should not be shifted from the left margin. Paragraph spacing after a single paragraph (6 nk) should be given. Papers should be 1.5-spaced with ample margin. The page setup is A4 size. Non-repeating line numbers should be added starting from the main text along with the page numbers.

The corresponding author must be uploaded five documents including the cover letter (1), title page (2), main text (3), author declarations’ form (4), and copyright form (5) to the submission system.

Cover Letter

Key points to include:

Editor’s name
Your manuscript’s title
Name of the journal (Health Sciences Quarterly) you are submitting to
Statement that your paper has not been previously published and is not currently under consideration by another journal
Brief description of the research you are reporting in your paper, why it is important, and why you think the readers of the journal would be interested in it
Contact information for you and any co-authors
Confirmation that you have no competing interests to disclose
Cover letter template

Title Page

The second file to be sent of the manuscript entitled "Title Page” must include;

Title of the study
The title must concise and informative and should not exceed 200 characters (or 25 words) including spaces (with keywords appropriate for retrieval purposes) and provide peer readers with a quick overview of the paper contents. Avoid abbreviations and formulae where possible. The title of the manuscript should be centered, written in bold, in Times New Roman 12 font size and 1.5-spaced.
Name(s) of author(s)
Author names should be indicated in the order of contribution. First of all, the surname of each author should be written clearly and then the name and / or the middle name should be written in capital letters (eg. Steven Lewis Brown => Brown SL). Name(s) of the author(s) should be centered, in Times New Roman 11 font size, and 1.5-spaced.
Affiliation(s) of author(s)
Affiliation(s) of author(s) should be written left-justified, italic, in Times New Roman 10 font size and 1.5-spaced (eg. Department of Cardiology Faculty of Medicine, Afyonkarahisar Health Sciences University, 03200, Afyonkarahisar, Turkey)
Information about correspondence
Information about correspondence must include the name of the corresponding author (it should be written clearly) and contact information under the correspondence title. It should be left-justified, written in bold (only title), in Times New Roman 11 font size and 1.5-spaced.
e-mail addresses and ORCID numbers of the authors
After the correspondence section, it should be written clearly all other authors' names, e-mail addresses, and the ORCID numbers in italic, and Times New Roman, 10 font size, and 1.5-spaced under the title of "Other Authors" (in bold).
(eg. Steven Lewis Brown, stvnlwsbrwn@ratingacademy.com, https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0055-7608).



Main Text

The third file to be sent of the manuscript entitled "Main Text” must include Abstract, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, References, Table(s), Legends (for figures), and Figures respectively. All headings and subheadings should be written in lowercase (first letter in the capital) and bold letters with 1.5 spacing. All headings should be left-justified, written in Times New Roman 12 font size, but subheadings in 11 font size and italic. Spacing before and after a heading (6 nk) should be given. Do not use (:, ; and the others) at the end of the headings and subheadings.

Abstract
All papers must have an abstract, not more than 300 words of clear, informative and giving significant objectives, methodology, results, and conclusion in the paper without captions. Between 3 and 6 keywords must be provided for the purpose of indexing and information retrieval. Abstract and keywords must be written in Times New Roman 11 font size and 1.5 spacing. If necessary, explain the abbreviations under the heading "Abbreviations" in detail and alphabetical order after Keywords in the Abstract (eg. Alanine transaminase, (ALT); Aspartate transaminase, (AST)…).
Text
The manuscript must be divided into sections and subheadings starting preferably with Introduction and ending with the references. Please start the method section with the statement indicating the ethics committee approval of the study. An ethical statement is also required for retrospective studies. All the text should be written in Times New Roman 11 font size and 1.5 spacing without paragraph spacing.
References
There are no restrictions on number of references. HSQ uses the Vancouver Citation Style as outlined in the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) sample references with DOI.
References must be listed at the end of the manuscript and numbered in the order that they appear in the text.
In the text, citations must be indicated by the reference number in square brackets [...]. Numbers corresponding to references listed in the “References” section must not be in brackets.
More than two references in numerical sequence should not be written one after another in sequence but as [1-4], etc. Use an En Dash between page numbers, “120-130” not an Em Dash, “120—130”.
Avoid writing the name(s) of author(s) followed by the reference number — style the sentence so that only the reference number is stated. Journal name abbreviations must be those found in NCBI databases [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/journals].
References with more than six authors must be shortened with “et al.”; all authors must be listed.
Authors must not cite: MSc theses, posters presented at scientific meetings, abstracts, unavailable and unpublished data, personal communications and manuscripts that have been submitted but have not yet been accepted. Therefore, avoid use of expressions such as “manuscript submitted”, “unpublished work”, as well as “data not shown”.
If an article is submitted to a journal and also publicly available as a pre-print, the pre-print may be cited. References for accepted articles may be included as “in press”, with the authors, title of the work, journal and DOI provided in the reference list.
Reference formatting - examples

Published papers

Pektas MB, Sadi G, Koca HB, Yuksel Y, Vurmaz A, Koca T, et al. Resveratrol ameliorates the components of hepatic inflammation and apoptosis in a rat model of streptozotocin-induced diabetes. Drug Dev Res. 2016;77(1):12-9. doi: 10.1002/ddr.21287.
Korkmaz OA, Sumlu E, Koca HB, Pektas MB, Kocabas A, Sadi G, et al. Effects of Lactobacillus plantarum and Lactobacillus helveticus on renal insulin signaling, inflammatory markers, and glucose transporters in high-fructose-fed rats. Medicina. 2019;55(5):pii:E207. doi: 10.3390/medicina55050207.
Accepted, unpublished papers

Głusiec W. Hospital chaplains as ethical consultants in making difficult medical decisions. J Med Ethics. 2021; “in press”. doi: 10.1136/medethics-2020-107096.
Websites or online articles

Norton, R. (2006, November 4). How to train a cat to operate a light switch [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vja83KLQXZs
Books

Rascati KL. Essentials of Pharmacoeconomics. 2nd ed. Philadelphia: Wolters Kluwer; 2014. 225-45 p.
Book chapters

Fares-Frederickson N, David M. Introduction to immunity and inflammation. In: Brunton LL, Hilal-Dandan R, Knollmann BC, editors. Goodman and Gilman’s the pharmacological basis of therapeutics. 13th ed. New York: Cenveo Publisher Services; 2018. 621-35 p.
Conferences

Şumlu E, Yildirim OG, Koca HB, Pektaş MB, Sadi G, Akar F. High-fructose diet activates testicular inflammatory pathway in rat. In: World Food Science and Technology Congress. 2019. p. 25-26.
Tables
Tables should be single spaced. The tables should be kept to a minimum and be designed to be as simple as possible. Tables are to be typed single-spaced throughout, including headings and footnotes. Each table should be numbered consecutively and supplied with a heading and a legend. The title should be placed at the top. Explanatory information and experimental conditions should be given as a note at the bottom. Explanatory information and experimental conditions should be given as a note at the bottom of the columns. Tables should be self-explanatory without reference to the text. The same data should not be presented in both table and graph form or repeated in the text. The headlines of the tables must be written in Times New Roman 11 font and with bold letters. References for the tables must be below the table with a font size of 10 fonts. Each table should be prepared in a unique page.
Figure
Illustrations must be numbered consecutively. They should be cited in the text as Figure 1, Figure 2, and so on. Begin each legend with a title at the bottom of the illustration and include sufficient description so that the figure is understandable without reading the text of the manuscript. Graphics should be prepared using applications capable of generating high resolution (300 dpi) JPEG before pasting in the Microsoft Word manuscript file. The headlines of the figures must be written in Times New Roman 11 font and with bold letters. References for the figures must be below the figure with a font size of 10 fonts. Each figure should be prepared in a unique page.


Author Declarations’ Form

It must include the statements of Title of the Manuscript, Conflict to Interest, Funding, Author Contributions, Data Availability Statement, and Acknowledgements (optionally). All headings should be left-justified, written in Times New Roman 11 font size. Author Declarations’ Form is exported to a PDF format for submission.

Author Declarations’ Form


Privacy Statement
The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.

ETHICAL POLICIES

Health Sciences Quarterly (HSQ) is committed to meeting and upholding standards of ethical principles at all stages of the publication process. It strictly follows the general ethical guidelines provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics and the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association. Depending on these principles and general publication requirements, editors, peer reviewers, and authors must take the following responsibilities in accordance with professional ethics and norms. The proper and ethical process of publishing is dependent on fulfilling these responsibilities.

The Responsibilities of Editors


The General Responsibilities
Editors should be accountable for everything published in their journals. The editor should make the efforts to improve the quality of and contribute to the development of the journal. The editor should support authors’ freedom of expression.





Relations with Readers
Readers should be clearly informed about how the research has funded or other scholarly study and whether the funders had any role in the research and its publication and, if so, what this was. The editor should make efforts to ensure that the articles published to align with the knowledge and skills of the readers.

1.3. Relations with Referees

The editor should match the knowledge and expertise of the referees with the manuscripts submitted to HSQ to be reviewed ensuring that the manuscripts are adequately reviewed by qualified reviewers. The editor should require reviewers to disclose any potential competing interests before accepting to review a submission. The editor should provide necessary information about the review process to the referees about what is expected of them. The editor must ensure that the review process is double-blind and never reveal the identities of the authors to the referees or vice versa. The editors encourage referees to evaluate manuscripts from an objective and scientific perspective. If necessary, editors may also request that the manuscript be reviewed in terms of English editing. The editor should develop a database of suitable referees and update it on the basis of referee performance and timing. The referee database; it should be attentive to scientists who evaluate the manuscripts objectively, perform the review process on time, evaluate the manuscript with constructive criticism and act in accordance with ethical policies.

1.4. Relations with Authors

The editor should provide clear publication guidelines and author guidelines of what is expected of them to the authors and continuously review the guidelines and templates. The editor should review the manuscript submitted in terms of guidelines of the journal, importance of the study, and originality, and if the decision to reject the manuscript is made editor should explain it to the authors in a clear and unbiased way. If the decision is made that the manuscript should be revised by the authors in terms of written language, punctuation, and/or rules in the guidelines (spacing, proper referencing, etc.) the authors should be notified and given time to do the corrections accordingly. The authors should be provided with necessary information about the process of their review (at which stage is the manuscript at etc.) complying with the rules of double-blind review. In the case of an editor change, the new editor should not change a decision taken by the previous editor unless it is an important situation.

1.5. Relations with Editorial Board Members

The editor should provide publication policies and guidelines to the editorial board members and explain what is expected of them. The editor should ensure that the editorial board members have the recently updated publication guidelines and policies. The editor should review the editorial board members and include members who can actively contribute to the journal’s development. Editorial board members should be informed about their roles and responsibilities such as;

Supporting development of the journal
Accepting to write reviews in their expertise when asked
Reviewing publication guidelines and improving them consistently
Taking responsibility in journal’s operation


The Ethical Responsibilities of Referees
The referees must only agree to review manuscripts that align with their expertise. The referees must make the evaluation in neutrality and confidentiality. In accordance with this principle, they should destroy the manuscripts they examine after the evaluation process but use them only after they are published. Nationality, gender, religious belief, political belief, and commercial concerns should not disrupt the neutrality of the assessment. The referees must only review manuscripts in which they do not have any conflict of interests. If they notice any conflict of interests they should inform the editor about the issue and decline to be a referee to the related manuscript. Referees must include the Manuscript Evaluation Form for the manuscripts they evaluate without indicating their names to protect the blind review process. And they should include their final decision about the manuscript whether or not it should be published and why. The suggestions and wording of the reviews should be polite, courteous, and scientific. The referees should avoid including hostile, disrespectful, and subjective personal comments. When these comments are detected they could be reviewed and returned to the reviewer to be revised by the editor or editorial board. The referees should respond in time when a manuscript is submitted to them to be reviewed and they should adhere to the ethical responsibilities declared hereby.

The Ethical Responsibilities of Author(s)
Submitted manuscripts should be original works in accordance with the specified fields of study. Manuscripts sent for publication should not contradict scientific publication ethics (plagiarism, counterfeiting, distortion, republishing, slicing, unfair authorship, not to mention the supporting organization). The potential conflicts of interest of the author(s) should be stated and the reason should be explained. The bibliography list is complete and should be prepared correctly and the cited sources must be specified. The names of the people who did not contribute to the manuscript should not be indicated as authors, they should not be suggested to change the authors order, remove the author, or add an author for a manuscript that is submitted for publication. Nevertheless, they should identify individuals who have a significant share in their work as co-authors. A study cannot be published without the consent of all its authors. Author(s) are obliged to transmit the raw data of the manuscript to the editor upon request of journal editors. The author(s) should contact the editor to provide information, correction or withdrawal when they notice the error regarding the manuscript in the evaluation and early view phase or published electronically. Author (s) must not send manuscripts submitted for publication to another journal at the same time. Articles published in another journal cannot be resubmitted to be published in the HSQ. In a manuscript that has reached the publication stage, the authors should fill in the "Copyright Transfer Form” and forward it to the editor.

The Ethical Responsibilities of Publisher
The publisher acknowledges that the decision making process and the review process are the responsibility of the editor of HSQ. The publisher is responsible for protecting the property and copyright of each published article and keeping a record of every published copy. The publisher is obliged to provide free access to all articles of the journal in electronic environment.

Plagiarism and unethical behavior
All manuscripts submitted to HSQ are reviewed through iThenticate software before publishing. The maximum similarity rate accepted is 20%. Manuscripts which exceed these limits are analyzed in detail and if deemed necessary returned to the authors for revision or correction, if not they could be rejected to be published if any plagiarism or unethical behavior is detected. Following are some of the behaviors which are accepted as unethical:

Indicating individuals who have not intellectually contributed to the manuscripts as authors.
Not indicating individuals who have intellectually contributed to the manuscripts as authors.
Not indicating that a manuscript was produced from author’s graduate thesis/dissertation or that the manuscript included was produced from a project’s data.
Salami slicing, producing more than one article from a single study.
Not declaring conflicting interests or relations in the manuscripts submitted.
Unveiling double blind process.

There will be a manuscript processing fee (50 $ USD) for each submission which covers the cost of the web design, article tracking system, issuing DOI, indexing, index follow-up, crosscheck similarity scanning, etc.
Once the manuscripts are sent to the referees after the editorial review; the publication fee is requested from the author(s) regardless of manuscript is being accepted/ rejected. No refund will be made for the articles even if the evaluation of manuscript results in rejection.

FOR BANK TRANSFER

Turkish Lira (TL) for Account

Account Name: RATING ACADEMY Ar-Ge Yazılım Yayıncılık Eğitim Danışmanlık ve Organizasyon Ticaret Ltd. Şti.,

Bank Name: Ziraat Bankası

Branch: 813- Kordon/Çanakkale

Account No: 77815187-5002

IBAN: TR72 0001 0008 1377 8151 8750 02

To pay by credit card: https://holistence.com/payment


$ USD for Account

Account Name: RATING ACADEMY Ar-Ge Yazılım Yayıncılık Eğitim Danışmanlık ve Organizasyon Ticaret Ltd. Şti.,

Bank Name: Ziraat Bankası

Branch: 813- Kordon/Çanakkale

Account No: 813-77815187-5004

IBAN: TR 1800 0100 0813 7781 5187 5004

SWIFT Code: TCZBTR2A

To pay by credit card: https://holistence.com/payment