Author Guidelines

By submitting a manuscript, you agree to the terms of payment for article-processing charge (APC).

These guidelines are following Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals formulated by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors.

     Our authors are advised to consult the following EQUATOR Network standards for proper research reporting:

     CONSORT for randomized trials;

     STROBE for observational studies;

     CARE for case studies;

     PRISMA for systematic reviews and meta-analyses.

    The authors of narrative reviews may benefit from consulting the following recommendations for defining their search strategies and structuring related articles: https://rdcu.be/bQcnm

    Any paper shall conform to the following requirements.

    1. Manuscript

    1.1. Text format. Please submit electronic texts in MS Word (with file extension .doc, .docx, .rtf; font should be 12-point Times New Roman; 1.5 interval; text margin 2.5 from both edges of the text. Do use boldface or italic, do NOT underlie anything. Remove all extra spaces and lines breaks (automatically using Microsoft Word service “Find and Replace”).

    1.2.  The length of the article, including the list of references, tables, illustrations, legends, will be on average 10 pages of A4 format (up to 5000 words) and may vary depending on the type of article.

    1.3. The language of the publication. The manuscripts in Ukrainian and/or English from any country are accepted for publication. The meta-data is published in two languages (Ukrainian and English). As the authors wish, they can send the full text of the article both in Ukrainian and in English. Low-quality English is not edited and not published.

    1.4. Submitting the manuscript. Articles for submission should not be prior published or submitted to other publications. The article should be sent through the manuscript submission form. The menu item Online Submissions. Before using this form, please, sign up as an author. As separate files, please, send accompanying documents and copies of images (figures, graphs, diagrams) in formats they were created in. *JPG or *TIF are preferred format for photos or pixel images. Submit their copies in the original size with a resolution at least 300 dpi. The dimension of the pictures in centimeters should provide clarity and legibility of the text. We welcome RGB or CMYK without compression. The images should be high-contract and sharply.

     Accompanying letter. Manuscripts should be accompanied by an accompanying letter containing the letter from an institutional body where the investigation was performed, a declaration of competing for interest, copyrights for authors, and a statement of ethics approval of the investigation. These documents should be prepared in any form and attached in the corresponding field in the form for sending a manuscript.

    2. Manuscripts sections

    The following are the general sections of manuscripts:

    — Title page

    — Abstract

    — Keywords

    — Text (including tables, figures)

    — Additional information

    — Reference

    — Full information about the authors in English.

    2.1. The title page includes the following information:

    — The article title provides a distilled description of the subject of the article; it should not be too short and should contain no more than 100 symbols. Capitalize the first letter and proper names only.

    — Full name of the authors.

    — The affiliation for each author. If there are several authors enter superscripted numbers near each surname and relevant organization. If all authors work in the same organization enter the authors’ affiliation singly. If the author works in several organizations enter superscripted numbers near each one.

    — Contact information of the corresponding author: full name, degree, affiliation, job position, post address of the organization, e-mail and contact telephone of the author.

    Please, set out your title page as follows:

    Vitamin D status in a population of Bukovyna and Subcarpathia depending on a residence above sea level.

    V.V. Povoroznyuk¹, V.I. Pankiv²

    ¹SI Chebotariov Institute of Gerontology of the National Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine, Kyiv, Ukraine

    ²Bukovynian State Medical University, Chernivtsi, Ukraine

    For correspondence: Volodymyr Pankiv, MD, Professor, Department of clinical immunology, allergology and endocrinology, Bukovina state medical University, Theatralna sq., 2, Chernivtsi-city, 58002, Ukraine, Fax: (0372) 55-37-54, Email: vipankiv@mail.ru, phone +38 (050) 123 45 67.

    2.2. Abstract. The author’s abstract is a key source of information in domestic and foreign information systems and databases indexed the journal. The length of the abstract is about 250 words or 1800–2500 symbols. The Abstract must contain substantial facts only, reflecting the content of the article; it should not contain descriptive generalizations, overinterpret or include the information absent in the article text. The Abstract should provide the context or background for the study and should state the study's purpose, basic procedures (selection of study participants, settings, measurements, analytical methods), main findings (giving specific effect sizes and their statistical and clinical significance, if possible), and principal conclusions. It should emphasize new and important aspects of the study or observations, note important limitations, and not overinterpret findings. Clinical trial abstracts should include items that the CONSORT group has identified as essential. The Abstract of the article should be structured and include 4 sections: Background, Materials and Methods, Results, Conclusions. The length of the Results section should be at least 50 % of the whole abstract. The Abstract of reviews, lectures, discussions are prepared in any format but should be about 1800–2500 symbols. The review abstracts should contain the information on search methods on Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed, EBSCO, The Cochrane Library, EMBASE, Global Health, and others.

    2.3. Keywords. Enter 3–6 words or phrases relevant to the article content and contributing to article indexing in search systems. The keywords of the review articles should contain the word “review” and be separated by a semicolon.

    2.4. The article text.

    Structure of the original research article should conform to a template and contain obligatory sections (IMRAD):

    — Introduction

    — Material and Methods

    — Results

    — Discussion

    — Conclusions.

    Introduction.

    It reflects the condition of the investigated problem globally (not only in this city or country), gives a concise review of relevant data, critical assessment of literature on the investigated problem, substantiation of novelty and significance of the investigation, determines unsolved questions, states the specific purpose and objective explaining further studies. The introduction should reflect on each keyword. Avoid detailed analysis and historic journey. State the specific purpose or research objective of, or hypothesis tested by, the study or observation. Cite only directly pertinent references, and do not include data or conclusions from the work being reported. The introduction section should contain at least 15 references to the periodic articles that have been published for the last 5–10 years.

    Materials and Methods. The guiding policy of the Materials and Methods section should be evidence about how and why a study was done in a particular way.

    The section should aim to be enough detailed such that others with access to the data would be able to repeat the results. Describes the number and descriptive characteristics of patients or other investigated objects, inclusion and exclusion criteria, study method (cohort, prospective, randomized trial of drugs, retrospective, observations), provides a detailed description of a new drug, method, modification, experiment, surgical intervention. In general, the section should include only information that was available at the time the plan or protocol for the study was being written; all information obtained during the study belongs in the Results section. The section allows see that the study eliminates all possible sources of errors; the author was aware of all factors impacting the results and overcame them.

    Describe statistical methods with enough detail to enable a reader with access to the original data to judge its appropriateness for the study and to verify the reported results. When possible, quantify findings and present them with appropriate indicators of measurement error or uncertainty (such as confidence intervals). Avoid relying solely on statistical hypothesis testing, such as P values, which fail to convey important information about effect size and precision of estimates. Specify the statistical software package(s) and versions used.

    The Materials and Methods section also provides information on the approval of a study by a local or central ethical committee, specifies the protocol number and date, as well as an indication of the written informed consent of patients to participate in the study. Methods section should be evidence about how and why a study was done in a particular way.

    The section should aim to be enough detailed such that others with access to the data would be able to repeat the results. Describes the number and descriptive characteristics of patients or other investigated objects, inclusion and exclusion criteria, study method (cohort, prospective, randomized trial of drugs, retrospective, observations), provides a detailed description of a new drug, method, modification, experiment, surgical intervention. In general, the section should include only information that was available at the time the plan or protocol for the study was being written; all information obtained during the study belongs in the Results section. The section allows see that the study eliminates all possible sources of errors; the author was aware of all factors impacting the results and overcame them.

    Results should be clear and concise. The section describes and explains all obtained data with the statistical results, level of evidence (I or II). The section presents the results in logical sequence in the text, tables and figures. Provide data on all primary and secondary results listed in the Materials and Methods section. Do not repeat all the data in the tables or figures in the text; emphasize only the most important observations. Do not duplicate data from graphs in tables. The units in measuring system should correspond to the International System of Units, except for those traditionally used in other units. The names of drugs and abbreviations should correspond to the international drug nomenclature. This section does not contain references to literature, data interpretation and comparison with the same results.

    Discussion contains references to analogous works (10–15 articles in the international journals from Scopus for the last 5 years), emphasizes new and important aspects of the study results and compares with the data of other investigators. Do not repeat data alluded in the Introduction section and detailed data from the Results section. The Discussion section may include grounded recommendations on results implementation and give reasons for further scientific studies.

    Conclusions are related to the goal of the study and the article title. Do not duplicate conclusions in the corresponding part of the abstract. The section summarizes the results of the work.

    The sections of reviews, lectures, opinion articles, clinical cases, systematic reports could be prepared in any form. However, the reviews are encouraged to conform to the international requirements for the systematic literature review. The detailed information on review compiling is available at PRISMA guidelines. Need to describe the methods used for locating, selecting, extracting, and synthesizing data; this is mandatory for systematic reviews.

    The tables are self-containing elements of article and capture important information concisely and accurately that allows reduce the volume of the manuscript text. The table should contain the necessary data only and provide generalized and statistical data. Place the table after you have first cited it. Supply a title for a table and number it consecutively in the order of its first citation in the text. Do not use horizontal and vertical lines as borders inside a table. Each column should have a brief heading. Legends and footnotes should contain all data that allow the reader to understand the table content without reading Materials and Methods section, including statistical methods used to provide variable data and statistical significance. The abbreviations should be explained in the notes alphabetically. Cite the tables in the manuscript as follows: table 1 (2, 3 etc.).

    Illustrations (figures, photos, diagrams)

    Each illustration is a self-containing element of an article. It should have a general title and all abbreviations explained that allows a reader to understand without going back to Materials and Methods section or re-reading an article title. Place the figures according to the order in which they have been cited in the text. Refer to the figure as follows: Fig. 1 (2, 3 etc). Figure caption contains its title and a legend (explanation of some parts of the figure, symbols, arrows and other details). The figure explanation should be contained within the legend, but not in the figure. All abbreviations used in the figure should be explained alphabetically at the end of each legend with statistical criteria (methods) and statistical parameters (standard deviation, standard error for mean, etc.). Use symbols *, **,  †, ††, ‡, ‡‡ etc. to note the statistical significance/non-significance of the data provided in the figure.

    Letters, numeric and symbols on the figure should contrast with the background, should be sharp, unified and large enough to be legible after print. Same-type illustrations should be same in size, scale, type of information presentation.

    The diagrams should be well-formed (each axis is labeled, including units in SI system). Diagram bars statistically differed from each other are labeled with *, **, ***.  The legend contains n = … and comparative method. The symbol ± is explained near each dot (m, SD, SE, first and third quartiles, max and minimal data and so on).

    The captions contain labels for axis X and Y and explanatory information for each curve. The captions for microphotographs contain the staining method and scale (zoom rate).

    The photographs of people that could be potentially identified (patients without mask) should be accompanied with written permission for publication. If a figure (table, photograph) has been prior published, refer to the original source and submit written permission from the copyright holder to reproduce it, except for the documents in public domain.

    2.5. Give additional information at the end of the paper text, before the references. The conflict of interest declaration is obligatory. The conflict of interest exists (financial relations, service or work in institutions which have a financial or political interest to the materials published, job duties and so on) when any situation can influence the author of the manuscript and cause data concealing or bias or impact data interpreting.

    Information on funding. List funding sources — all people and organizations provided financial support for the study (grants, donation, instruments, agents, materials, drugs etc) as well as other subjects with another financial or personal participation that can cause the conflict of interest. Do not specify the volume of funding.

    Acknowledgments. The authors confer credit to the people and organizations contributed to the paper to be published in the journal, but they are not qualified as the authors.

    Information on contribution of each author (and people mentioned in Credit section). For example:

    Ivanov I.I. Concept and design of study

    Petrov P.P. Collection and processing of the material

    Sidorov S.S. Analysis of the data, text writing

    2.6. References should be given following the National Library of Medicine (NLM) standards.

The proper compiling of the references is a very important aspect while preparing a paper and requires particular accuracy.

General guidelines

Each reference is numbered. Its number in Arabic numerals is placed in square brackets in the text. The references are listed in the order they appear in the article (Vancouver style), NOT in alphabetical order. The optimal number of cited references depends on the article type - approximately 30-40 for original articles and lectures and 60-100 for narrative reviews. It is advisable to cite original papers published in the last 5–7 years, which are retrieved from multidisciplinary (e.g., Scopus, Web of Science) and specialist bibliographic databases (e.g., MEDLINE, CINAHL). Unjustified author self-citations should be avoided. Citing conference proceedings, monographs should be kept to a minimum. The reference lists should not include non-peer-reviewed magazines and newspapers, unpublished sources, dissertations, textbooks, and manuals.

Additional information on papers DOI, PubMed ID and etc should be given. If fewer than half of the resources in the references have DOI index the article cannot be published in the international scientific journal. The resources should be verified. The author is responsible for the adequacy of the data in the references.

Important information! Authors of articles whose references includes sources published in Ukrainian or another language that uses the Cyrillic alphabet must provide bibliography in 2 versions:

  1. References — written with symbols of the Latin alphabet according to the standards of the National Library of Medicine (NLM).
  2. Bibliography — sources published in Cyrillic indicate it. Those sources that are published in Latin indicate in accordance with the NLM standards, as in the References.

The punctuation rules are the same for both versions.

Examples of formatting the References are on the Reference List Guidelines.

    2.7. Full information about the authors

Please, provide the following information about all authors as a separate unit at the end of an article: Surname, initials, degree, occupation, division (department, unit), affiliation in full, e-mail, ORCID.

    Examples:

    1. V.V. Povoroznyuk — MD, PhD, professor, heads the department of clinical physiology and pathology of the locomotor apparatus, D. F. Chebotarev Institute of Gerontology NAMS Ukraine, Kyiv, Ukraine. e-mail: okfpodac@ukr.net. ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9770-4113.

    2. V. I. Pankiv — MD, PhD, professor, head of the department for the prevention and treatment of diabetes and its complications, Ukrainian Scientific and Practical Center for Endocrine Surgery, Transplantation of Endocrine Organs and Tissues of the Health Ministry of Ukraine. e-mail: endocr@i.ua; ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9205-9530.

    3. Plagiarism and secondary publications. It is unacceptable to copy text and arrogate the study results, which do not belong to the authors of the manuscript submitted.

The editors reserve the right to screen submitted manuscripts for plagiarism.

More information at Retractions policy.

The manuscript must be edited and adjusted by the author. Make sure before sending the manuscript you have followed all recommendations.