Qatar Medical Journal

Submissions

Papers considered for publication in Qatar Medical Journal are those reporting original work, review articles and case reports that are particularly relevant to medicine in the broad sense. Editorials and Review articles are also considered by the journal. Cover letters are not a requirement for submission to the journal. Please refer to our Ethical Policy and Authors Responsibilities sections below before submitting your paper to the journal.

Authors are advised that QMJ is a supporter of the CONSORT Statement, an evidence-based, minimum set of recommendations for reporting randomized controlled trials. It offers a standard way for authors to prepare reports of trial findings, facilitating their complete and transparent reporting, and aiding their critical appraisal and interpretation. In addition, we also adhere to the guidelines in the TREND Statement, a 22-item checklist specifically developed to guide standardized reporting of nonrandomized controlled trials. Where appropriate, authors should also adhere to the STARD Statement, PRISMA, and CARE guidelines.

Article Processing Charges: None, Hamad Medical Corporation covers all submission and publication fees.

ORCID: Authors are encouraged to get an ORCID ID before submission. It is freely available at https://orcid.org.

Manuscripts Submission Site: https://www.editorialmanager.com/qmj/default.aspx

Authors guidelines for registration and for uploading papers to the system.

Manuscript Preparation:

We predominantly publish one of 5 main article types:

1. Research articles should describe a piece of original research, with results that advance the scientific field or add evidence to a proposed theory. All research articles are expected to be appropriately referenced, citing all prior research pertinent to the work being presented. They are typically between up to 10 pages including references.
2. Review articles are typically commissioned by the editor-in-chief. If you have an idea for a review article, please submit through email.
3. Case studies are detailed reports of the symptoms, signs, diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up of an individual.
4. Editorials are usually reserved for the editor-in-chief and editorial board. However, guest editorials will occasionally be commissioned. 
5. Letters: We encourage readers of the journal to engage in formal communication with the journal via a Letter to the Editor. Letters should typically be short (not exceeding 1000 words), concise, and consist of no more than 3 authors.

1) The manuscript should contain continuous line numbering and pages should be numbered starting with the title page using Arabic numerals. Use double spacing and start each section in a new page (Title, Introduction, Methods, Result, etc.). The title page should be the only document containing the author's affiliation details. All other documents submitted online other than the title page should be anonymised for the purpose of the double blind peer review process.

2) Case reports have to be short, not exceeding 5 pages with the references, and original articles up to 10 pages including references. Please ensure that submissions do not exceed 6500 words. Manuscript documents should be submitted to the Editorial Manager system in Word format. Other file formats will be accepted only for figures/image files.

3) Figures should be of a high quality. Colour figures are welcomed. Tables should each be on a separate page and separate from the legends.

4) S.I. units of measurements are preferred. Authors are advised to assemble, analyze and present their data according to: Altman DG et al. Statistical guidelines for contributors to medical journals. Br. Med. J. 1983; 286: 1489-1493.

5) References should be listed numerically at the end of the article in their order of appearance. The references must be given in the Vancouver style. Authors are advised to study thoroughly the following: International Committee of Medical Journal Editors: Uniform requirements of manuscripts submitted to biomedical journal Br. Med. J. 1982; 284: 1766-70 (Reprinted in Qatar Medical Journal 1984; 5: 6-15).

6) Manuscripts are published in English only. Articles accepted for publication are subject to editorial revision. Revised manuscripts submitted should contain track changes highlighting the revisions made and response to reviewers are also required. Revisions not containing track changes or response to reviewers will be sent back to authors.

7) All details about authors such as their names, affiliations, email addresses, author contributions, fund statement, etc. must be included in a title page. If such information were mentioned in the manuscript body, the manuscript will be returned to authors. 

Publishing Policy

Open Access: Articles are published as fully open access. They are published under the Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. As per this license, all articles are free to access, read, download, copy, distribute, and adapt as long as the original work is attributed to their original creators (https://www.qscience.com/open_access). 

Copyright: The copyright of articles is retained by authors. Authors grant HBKU Press a license to publish the articles and identify itself as the original publisher. The authors also grant any third party the right to use the article freely as long as its original authors, citation details, and publisher are identified. Formal terms and conditions can be read at the Creative Commons website for Attribution License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode

Privacy Statement:The personal information used on this website is to be used exclusively for the stated purposes of the journal. It will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.

Archiving: The journal articles are archived, for long-term preservation, on multiple servers around the world by our archiving and preservation partner CLOCKSS (https://clockss.org/).

Peer review Policy

QMJ and HBKU Press take the peer review process seriously and papers go through a rigorous peer review process. The submitted paper is sent to at least 2 external qualified experts in the topic of the paper. The journal uses a double-blind peer review process, meaning that the identities of reviewers and authors are not revealed to one another. Reviewers are given a structured review report to fill in to assist them to communicate a structured and constructive feedback to authors. Usually, reviewers submit reports with comments or corrections suggestions for authors to address. When authors receive these reports, they need to revise their original submission and resubmit the paper with a letter highlighting the changes they have made considering the reviewers' comments. Based on the reviewers' reports and authors revision, the editor reaches a publication decision (reject/accept after revision/accept). For more information about our main peer-reviewed policy https://www.qscience.com/reviewer_guidelines

If the author is required to suggest reviewers, then author may consider the below tips:

1. Look for scholars who might be interested in reviewing your work.
2. Start with researchers referenced in your manuscript and maintain a database of their specialties and peer review experience.
3. Provide a diverse list of reviewers from different institutions, related fields, and viewpoints.
4. Ensure your recommendations are experts in your field.
5. Take your time and be thorough when making suggestions.
6. Avoid suggesting reviewers you know personally, those from your target journal, or those who may simply agree with your work.

Editorial Policy

On submission, if passing initial screening (following journal’s scope and guidelines) the manuscript is assigned to an editorial member for an initial assessment of the paper and whether to be considered for external peer reviewing or return to authors. Please refer to the Ethical Policy and Publication Ethics section below. 

The next step, the editor sends it to at least 2 external experts in the field of the paper for peer review; the editor manages the review process between the authors and reviewers and ensures that authors have addressed all points of reviewers in their revision. When all revisions have been completed and accepted by reviewers and editor, the editor will notify the Editor in Chief and a notification of acceptance, via the online submission system, is sent to authors. Once accepted the paper will be handled by HBKU Press for preparation for publication. 

Ethical Policy and Publication Ethics

COPE Compliance:

QMJ and HBKU Press, are members of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) https://publicationethics.org/about/our-organisation  and adhere to its Code of Conduct and its Best Practice Guidelines  https://publicationethics.org/core-practices. We also adhere to the international standards in research and publications ethics, and we will not tolerate cases of suspected research and publication misconduct. Authors should comply to these publication ethics and follow the rules related to their field of study (e.g. human participants, animals). More details related to ethical guidelines for experimental research on humans, medical or pharmaceutically related are on https://www.qscience.com/editorial_policy. Authors who are concerned about the editorial process may refer their concerns to COPE. 

Please be aware of the below malpractice points before submitting manuscripts:

Submissions: Papers submitted should not have been published elsewhere (unless published as an abstract or thesis), Papers should not be under consideration by another publication. We take publications ethics very seriously; we check if the paper has been published before.

Plagiarism: Manuscripts upon receipt are checked for plagiarism using a specialized software and will be rejected in case of plagiarism. Plagiarism means using another person’s ideas, data, images, tables, research processes, results, or words without attributing them to the original author/source and claiming them to be your own materials. So please ensure that all others' work is cited properly even if citing your own previously-published work (Self Citation). If citing your previously published work, there is a limit to the number of sources used. The same applies to re-using tables or images (please cite the source).

Authorship: should be limited to those who have made a substantial contribution to the manuscript (conception, design of the study, data collection, analysis, and drafting the manuscript or revised it critically for content).  The corresponding author should confirm that all co-authors have approved the final version submitted to the journal. Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or supervision of the research group are not enough to justify authorship alone; such contributions should be listed in the acknowledgment section.

Competing Interests: All authors are asked to disclose competing interests at the submission stage. All potential conflicts of interest must be listed in the manuscript. Any personal or financial relationship with an individual or an organization that may influence your interpretation of the results should be disclosed.

Research on Humans and Animals: authors need to comply with the related ethical rules in research. For further details, please refer to the Ethical guidelines section on https://www.qscience.com/editorial_policy

Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI):Usage ofAI chatbots in the production of the paper must be stated in the cover letter and how it was used. 

Research Misconduct and Journal Actions:Research misconduct includes plagiarism, republishing/duplication of study in another journal, fraud of data, falsifying research records or results or patients approval. Any allegations of misconduct should be reported to the Editor in Chief. The allegations will be investigated following COPE guidelines for misconduct (https://publicationethics.org/misconduct ). Actions will be as follows depending when the misconduct is reported and verified: 

• Pre-publishing − the manuscript will be rejected. 
• Post-publishing − the paper will be retracted from the journal website as per our reattraction policy section below.

Retraction Policy 

The journal follows COPE Retraction Guidelines (https://doi.org/10.24318/cope.2019.1.4), an article can be retracted for any misconduct instances explained above. When retracted, the article webpage will display the article metadata with a note that it has been retracted and why. The PDF version of article will be marked “retracted” on each page. 

Corrections Policy

If an unintended error occurred in a published article, depending on the type of errors and how much the content is affected, the editor after discussion with authors can decide for an article to be corrected. There are 2 types of corrections: 1) errata for errors made by the journal or publisher and do not affect the scientific content of the article (e.g., typographic errors, header wrong number). In such cases, and depending on the error severity, the original PDF will be replaced with an updated version along with a correction notice on the webpage of the paper, stating the errors in the old version and the changes inserted in the new version. The original PDF will be marked with a correction note and an indication to the corrected version of the erratum article.  2) corrigenda, if unintentional errors made by the authors and affecting the scientific integrity of the paper or changes in authorship. Corrigenda are published as a separate publication and assigned their own DOI. 

The decision for issuing errata or corrigenda is with the editors after discussion with the authors.

Authors Responsibilities

Authors must ensure that:

• The paper is original and is their own work. The data presented is real and the research is conducted and written properly.
• The paper has not been previously published or submitted to another journal at the same time.
• All authors mentioned have significantly contributed to the work.
• Identify and cite any materials taken from other sources including tables, images, or author’s own previously published work.
• Follow any rights regulations: copyright, privacy rights, intellectual rights and obtain permission to re-use images, data, tables (when required).
• Adhere to all research ethics and guidelines of their disciplines and identify that in the manuscript. If the study involves humans participating, their consent must be obtained. 
• Acknowledge, in the paper, any conflict of interest (employment, personal financial interest or others) together with any funding sources for the research.
• Participate in the peer review process and respond to all reviewers’ comments and revise the manuscript on time.
• Report any errors or inaccuracies they discover pre or post publication to the editors to provide corrections or retract the paper. Please refer to the retraction and correction policies above.
• Agree that the paper will be published as open access under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0) license.(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Reviewers Responsibilities

• Report to editors any conflict of interest before accepting review.
• Report any suspected misconduct related to the paper they review.
• Be objective in their assessment and provide good quality and constructive feedback for authors to improve the manuscript.
• Identify any part in the paper that has been plagiarized or not cited.
• Maintain the confidentiality of the review process. Should not use, share or disclose unpublished information in a manuscript.
• Refrain from contacting the authors directly (anyway, it is blind peer review and the journal will not reveal the identity of authors to reviewers).
• Reply promptly upon receiving a review invitation (whether accept or decline) to editors.

COPE Guidelines for Reviewers (https://publicationethics.org/files/Ethical_guidelines_for_peer_reviewers_0.pdf)

Editors responsibilities

• Accept/reject papers based only on the content of manuscripts, regardless of authors race, gender, or nationality.
• Maintain confidentiality about the paper and authors. Not using any part of the content in their own research without authors’ written consent.
• Declare any conflict of interest and handle the manuscript to another editor.
• Ensure that each manuscript is reviewed by at least 2 experts in the discipline of the paper. 
• In case of any misconduct reported, editors will investigate and follow COPE guidelines (https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Flowcharts ). Allegations of misconduct by COPE: https://publicationethics.org/misconduct