The JDUHS offers submission of manuscripts in the form of Original Article, Systemic Review, Meta-Analysis, Review Article, Short Communication, Case Report, Student Article, Commentary, Audit, or Letter to the Editor.

All manuscripts should be submitted through the online portal system of the journal or via email: jduhs@duhs.edu.pk.

The journal discourages submission of more than one article dealing with related aspects of the same study. Authors are strictly directed to follow the submission checklist before submitting the manuscript to the journal. Manuscripts that do not adhere to the instructions will be returned to the corresponding author for technical revision before undergoing peer review. 

SUBMISSION CHECKLIST 

  • Ethical committee/Institutional approval letter is attached.
  • Title page of the manuscript includes the following information: Title, complete authors name, affiliation/s of each author, corresponding author’s details including professional affiliation, postal and email address and telephone number.
  • The manuscript is structured as per the JDUHS “Instructions for Authors” guidelines.
  • Data / output file should be provided along with the other required documents.
  • The similarity index of the submitted manuscript should be less than 19% with no single source of more than 5%. (All manuscripts submitted to the JDUHS are subject to screening using the “Turnitin Software” for textual similarity to other previously published works)
  • In case of original article, total number of references are in between 20-40 and the minimum word count of manuscript 2000 excluding abstract.
  • Running title is mentioned.
  • Tables/figures are not more than four.
  • All References are in Vancouver style.
  • More than 60% of the References are from last 5 years.

AUTHORSHIP CRITERIA

Consistent with the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) guidelines (http://www.icmje.org/), all listed authors must meet the following criteria:

  • Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work, or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work
  • Drafting of the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content
  • Final approval of the version to be published
  • Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Authors are expected to consider carefully the author’s list and order before submitting their manuscript and provide the definitive list of authors at the time of the original submission. Any addition, deletion or rearrangement of author names in the authorship list should be made only before the manuscript has been accepted and only if approved by the journal editor. The journal may ask for the reason for the change in author list and written confirmation (email, letter) from all authors that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement. No changes in the authors’ list will be made if the manuscript has already been published in an online issue.

Corresponding authors are responsible for ensuring that all listed authors have approved the manuscript before submission, including the names and order of authors.

This responsibility includes but not limited to: (i) ensuring that original data/original figures/materials/code upon which the submission is based are preserved following best practices in the field so that they are retrievable for reanalysis; (ii) confirming that data/figures/materials/code presentation accurately reflects the originality; and (iii) foreseeing and minimizing obstacles to the sharing of data/materials/code described in the work. The corresponding author should be responsible for managing these requirements across the author group and ensuring that the entire author group is fully aware of and in compliance with best practices in the discipline of publication.

 SUBMISSION FORMAT

Text files should be submitted as word files in the following order: Cover letter, Title page, Manuscript in the prescribed format.  

Title page

Title page should be submitted separately with the manuscript providing the following information;

Title: The title should be concise and informative. Avoid abbreviations and formulae where possible.

Running title: A short running title is also required. The number of word count in running title should not exceed 65 characters without spacing.  

Authors name and affiliations: The name of each author should be accurately spelled and provided with Given name(s) and family name(s). Present the authors’ affiliation addresses (where the actual work was done) below the names. Provide the full postal address of each affiliation, including the country name and the e-mail address of each author.

Corresponding author: Complete detail of the corresponding author including name, institutional address, Email, and Contact number must be provided. The journal will make all the communication with the corresponding author at given addresses and contact number.

Word Count: Total word count of the manuscript, excluding the title, abstract and table/figure(s) must be mentioned.

Number of references: The total number of references must also be mentioned.

 ARTICLE CATEGORIES

Original article

Original article should normally report original research focusing on new and important aspects of the study. The manuscript should be of about 2000-2500 words, with no more than six tables or illustrations. It should contain a structured abstract (Objective, methods, results, conclusion) of maximum 250 words. A maximum of 3 to 10 keywords should be given for an original article as per MeSH (Medical Subject Headings). Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions, and References should all start on a separate page. The total number of references in an Original Article must not exceed 30.

Systematic Review & Meta-analysis

All systematic reviews and meta-analysis should follow PRISMA guidelines. This PRISMA checklist is available at: http://www.prisma-statement.org/

 Review article

Review article should consist of a structured overview of some relatively narrow topics providing background and recent development with reference to the original literature. It should contain an unstructured abstract of 250 words. The length of the review article should be from 3000 to 4000 words with a minimum of 40 and maximum of 60 references. A maximum of 3 to 10 keywords should be given for review article as per MeSH (Medical Subject Headings).

 Commentary

It should contain an unstructured abstract of 150 words. The length of the commentary should be from 2500 to 3000 words with a minimum of 20 and maximum of 40 references. Three to 10 keywords should be given for review article as per MeSH (Medical Subject Headings).

 Short Communications

Short communications should be of about 1500-2000 words. It should contain a non-structured abstract of about 150 words with one table or illustration and no more than ten references. The rest of the format should be that of an original article.

Case Reports

Case reports may appear in this section. The word count of case report should be 1200-1500 words with a minimum of 3 keywords. It should have a non-structured abstract of about 100 – 150 words with a maximum of 10 references.

 Letter to the editor

Letters should normally not exceed 400 words, with not more than 5 references and be signed by all the authors-maximum 3 are allowed. Preference is given to those that take up points made in contributions published in the journal.

 Clinical Trials

Clinical trials (RCTs) must be registered and presented according to the CONSORT guidelines.

 The summary of the submission requirements for manuscript type is mentioned in the below;

STATISTICAL METHODS

Authors should include full information on the statistical methods and measures used in their research, including justification of the appropriateness of the statistical test used. Data/output file should be provided along with the other required documents.

CITATIONS IN THE TEXT

Please ensure that every reference cited in the text is also present in the reference list (and vice versa). The reference cited in the text should be in the number, superscripted and place after the dot. The citation number must be the same in the sequence as mentioned in the reference list.

 REFERENCES

References should be numbered in the order in which they are cited in the text. The reference list should include all and only those references you have cited in the text. Check the reference details against the actual source as they are indicating that you have read a source when you cite it.

At the end of the article, the full list of references should give the names and initials of all the authors (if the authors are more than six, then et al. should be followed after the 6th name). When referencing any book, put “ed.” after the name of the editor.

The title of the journal should be abbreviated according to the journal titles in the style used in the NLM Catalog (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/journals)

The author must verify the references against the original documents before submitting the article. The topic-specific reference style is given below;

Original articles: Author(s) names. Title of the article. title of the journal. Year; volume:page number. For e.g. Shafique K, Mirza SS, Vart P, Memon AR, Arain MI, Tareen MF, et al. Areca nut chewing and systemic inflammation: evidence of a common pathway for systemic diseases. J Inflamm. 2012;9:22.

Printed books: Author(s) /editor(s) names. Title. Series title and number (if any). Edition. Place of publication (if there is more than one place, use only first place):Publisher; year published. For e.g. Carlson BM. Human embryology and developmental biology. 4th ed. St. Louis: Mosby; 2009.

Electronic books: Author(s) /editor(s) names. Title [Internet]. Place of publication: Publisher; year of published. [cited YYYY Mon DD]. Available from: URL DOI: (if available). For e.g. Shreeve DF. Reactive attachment disorder: a case-based approach [Internet]. New York: Springer; 2012 [cited 2012 Nov 2]. Available from: http://ezproxy.lib.monash.edu.au/login?url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614- 1647-0

Chapter in an edited book: Author(s) /editor(s) names. Title of chapter. In: Editor AA, Editor BB, editors. Title of book. # edition. Place of Publication: Publisher; Year of publication. p. [page numbers of chapter]. For e.g. Blaxter PS, Farnsworth TP. Social health and class inequalities. In: Carter C, Peel JR, editors. Equalities and inequalities in health. 2nd ed. London: Academic Press; 1976. p. 165-78.

Government reports: Author(s) names. Title of report. Place of publication: Publisher; Date of publication. Total number of pages. Report No.: For e.g. Rowe IL, Carson NE. Medical manpower in Victoria. East Bentleigh (AU): Monash University, Department of Community Practice; 1981. 35 p. Report No.: 4.

Webpage: Author/organization’s name. Title of the page [Internet]. Place of publication: Publisher’s name; Date or year of publication [updated yr month day; cited yr month day]. Available from: URL. For e.g. Diabetes Australia. Diabetes globally [Internet]. Canberra ACT: Diabetes Australia; 2012 [updated 2012 June 15; cited 2012 Nov 5]. Available from: http://www.diabetesaustralia.com.au/en/ Understanding-Diabetes/DiabetesGlobally/

Conference proceeding: Title of conference paper followed by, In: Editor/Organisation. Title of the study. Place of publication: Publisher; Date of publication. For e.g. Wittke M. Design, construction, supervision and long-term behaviour of tunnels in swelling rock. In: Van Cotthem A, Charlier R, Thimus J-F, Tshibangu J-P. (eds.) Eurock 2006: multiphysics coupling and long term behaviour in rock mechanics: Proceedings of the International Symposium of the International Society for Rock Mechanics, EUROCK 2006, 9–12 May 2006, Liège, Belgium. London: Taylor & Francis; 2006. p.211–216.

Tables

Tables must be comprehensible without reference. Number table(s) consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text. Place footnotes to tables below the table body. The data presented in tables do not duplicate results described elsewhere in the article.

 Figures

Figures and graphs should not be over complex and must be intelligible when reduced in size for printing. X-rays, CT scans, MRI and photomicrographs should be in a digital format with a minimum resolution of 3.2 megapixels in JPEG/TIFF compression. Number figure(s) consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text. Make sure that figure should not display any identification of the patient. If necessary, written permission should be provided from the patient/guardian.

 SI Units

System International (S.I.) Unit measurement should be used.

 Funding

Financial support by any agency/organization needs to be declared. When funding is from a grant or other resources available to a government organization, NGO, university, college, or other research institution, submit the name of the institute or organization that provided the funding. In case of no funding than a statement “No Funding” must be stated.

 Conflict of interest statement

Authors must declare any financial, institutional, personnel and other relationship that might lead to bias their work or conflict of interest.  All sources of funding should be acknowledged in the manuscript. If the author(s) does not have any conflict of interest than a statement “All authors do not have any conflict of interest” must be stated.   

Acknowledgment

All persons who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be covered in the acknowledgment section. Moreover, financial, space and material support should also be acknowledged. 

Note: Funding, Conflict of interest, and acknowledgment should be mentioned at the end of the manuscript before the references.

 OTHER RULES

Abbreviations

A sentence should not start with a numeric value. Abbreviations must be defined at first use in each of the following: text, tables, and figure legends.

Units of measurement

Units of measurement must conform to the International System (SI) of Units.

Names of drugs, devices, and other products

Generic names should be used. When proprietary brands are used in research, include the brand name and the name of the manufacturer in parentheses after the first mention of the generic name in the Materials and Methods section. Use any trademark (TM) and registration (®) symbols required by law.

 REVISED MANUSCRIPTS

When the journal requests that a manuscript is revised and resubmitted, the same guidelines outlined for the preparation of the original manuscript should be followed. All resubmitted manuscripts must be accompanied by a Response to Decision letter. The Response to Decision letter must include a list of all revisions related to suggestions in the review materials provided by the Editorial Office. In instances where the author(s) choose not to make recommended revisions/changes, specific rationales and justifications must be provided in the Response to Decision letter.

AFTER ACCEPTANCE

Galley Proof

The journal office will send one set of page proofs (as PDF files) by e-mail to the corresponding author along with the correction grid form (as MS word file). The author should carefully read the final proof copy and list all corrections quoting line numbers and comments on the correction grid form.

The author must check the typesetting, editing, completeness, and correctness of the text, tables, and figures. It is important to ensure that all corrections are sent back to the journal within 48 hours. Even if there is no correction, the permission form should be sent to the journal with the signature.

Note: Although the editors and composers make every effort to ensure to compose the manuscript without any error, the final responsibility rests with the authors, not with the Journal or its editors to carefully proofread the final galley proof copy. Moreover, significant changes to the accepted articles at the galley proof stage will only be considered with permission from the Editor.

Printed copy

The office of the journal sent 1 printed copy of the issue in which the manuscript is published only on the request of the corresponding author.

Deadline of processes

All manuscripts submitted in JDUHS initially reviewed by the in-house member of the journal to check its similarity index, compliance with the journal guidelines, and ethical considerations. This is followed by the in-house and technical review of the paper. After satisfactory comments from the in-house and technical reviewers of the journals the manuscripts are sent to the peer review process. The first decision provided to authors approximately 15 days after submission; review process took on average 2-3 months, while the overall duration time from submission to acceptance is 3.5 months. (This is based on the median values for papers published in JDUHS in 2021).

 Correction and Retraction of Research Articles

 ERRATA AND CORRIGENDA

To correct errors in published articles, the corresponding author should contact the journal’s Editorial Office with a detailed description of the proposed correction. Corrections that profoundly affect the article’s interpretation or conclusions will be reviewed by the editors. Corrections will be published as corrigenda (corrections of author’s errors) or errata (corrections of publisher’s errors) in a later issue of the journal.