Submissions

Author Guidelines

As part of the editorial process, some guidelines have been established concerning the submission process as well as aspects related to the arrangement of the articles (that is, orthotypography and writing).

Submission

1. To submit your contributions, you must REGISTER in the journal’s platform.

2. The journal receives articles in both Spanish and English (see item 9.1). These must belong to one of the types of contributions detailed below. For classification purposes, the first three articles exposed next are the most important:

• Original Research Article: A paper that presents in detail the original results of research projects. The structure that is generally used contains five main sections: introduction, methods, results, discussion, and conclusions. Authors are asked to follow the standardized recommendations available on EQUATOR Network (Enhancing the Quality and Transparency Of health Research) for the presentation of randomized trials (CONSORT), observational studies (STROBE), prognostic or diagnostic studies (STARD, TRIPOD), clinical practice guidelines (AGREE), qualitative research (SRQR, COREQ), economic evaluations (CHEERS), and animal pre-clinic studies (ARRIVE).
• Reflection Article: A paper that presents research results from the author’s analytical, interpretative, or critical perspective on a specific topic, using original sources.
• Review Article: A paper resulting from a search for information where the results of published or unpublished research on a science or technology field are analyzed, systematized, and integrated in order to report on the advances and development trends. Systematic reviews following PRISMA guidelines are preferred. For narrative reviews, SANRA guidelines are recommended.
• Medical Education: A paper that presents relevant insights or studies related to health sciences education.
• History of Medicine: A paper that presents a medicine-related topic through an historical perspective.
• Case Report: A paper that presents the description and analysis of a particular clinical case of new conditions, or unreported, unexpected or unusual adverse effects, disease presentations or variations, in order to present technical and methodological experiences considered in that particular case. The report should follow the CARE guidelines.
• Short Communication: Short and concise reports of original studies, or preliminary reports thereof. They do not have an abstract, but include the four-section structure: introduction, methods, results, and discussion. All manuscripts requested by the Editorial Committee, such as topic reviews, editorials, or critical updates, will not be evaluated by external peer reviewers, but rather by the Editorial Committee itself.
• Supplement: Independent item that is added to a publication and is delivered separately.
• Letters to the Editor: Critical, analytical, or interpretative viewpoints on the papers published by the journal which, in the opinion of the Editorial Committee, make an important contribution to the subject’s discussion by the scientific community of reference.
• Letter to the Editor’s Reply: Section destined to publish the messages of the readers regarding a letter to the editor.
• Editorial: A paper written either by the editor, a member of the Editorial Committee or a guest researcher, on guidelines related to the journal’s domain.
• In Memoriam: Section dedicated to remember those who are no longer with us.

3. Papers must be unpublished and submitted exclusively for Iatreia’s consideration; exceptions are made for the reproduction of articles of special interest with the author or editor’s permission.

4. Iatreia does not charge authors for the processing of articles.

5. The paper must be submitted using the OJS program through the journal’s web page. The sender must keep a copy of all the sent material as the journal does not assume responsibility for damage or loss.

• The maximum acceptable length for review or reflection articles is 3500 words; 3000 for original, history of medicine and medical education articles; 1500 for case reports, short communications and all other types of articles; this excludes abstract, references, tables, and figures. Tables and Figures must be inserted at the end of the references to facilitate the word count for the required extension. The manuscript file must be 12-point Times New Roman font, double-spaced, with numbered lines.
• The abstract of all articles should include introduction, objective, methods, results and conclusions in a maximum of 200 words. The Editorial Committee reserves its right to make adjustments in the wording and length of the papers.
• The article file should not contain the names of the authors or sponsoring entities; this will ensure double-blind peer review.
• To submit a paper, the five steps established in the system must be followed. See instructions.

6. The paper must be submitted accompanied by two forms:

• Form 1. Presentation of the article, which states that all authors authorize the Iatreia journal to evaluate, review, and publish the submitted article.
• Form 2. Authorization for publication and authorship responsibility. The authors give the journal the authorization to publish in digital form and in the different databases the unpublished and original manuscript and specify what their contribution to its development has been, as indicated in the journal’s Code of Ethics, section 3, copyright. The journal accepts the inclusion of up to two main authors. This form must contain the author’s signatures, which may be handwritten, scanned, or digitalized.

Iatreia does not accept the addition or withdrawal of authors after the editorial process of the manuscripts has begun. In exceptional cases accepted by the Editorial Committee, it will be mandatory to send written consent from the authors whose names are to be removed or added; the latter must fill out forms 1 and 2 in their entirety.

7. Cover letter for the article: The cover letter’s purpose is to provide information to the editor that allows them to decide if the submitted article is relevant to the journal; the title must be included, and additionally, the letter should state if the article is unpublished and if it hasn’t been submitted to any other journal.

The reasons why the article should be considered for publication and the way it is related to the journal’s objectives and scope must be exposed. The closing of the letter should also state if there is any conflict of interest to declare. See cover letter’s format.

8. Approval letter from the ethics committee: To ensure transparency and compliance with ethical principles in medical research, authors must submit the approval letter for their study issued by the ethics committee of their institution.

9. Normalization of author citation: In order to be cited in the different scientific indices, authors must take into account that when both last names are used (e.g., Pedro Álvarez Jaramillo), some of these indices take the second last name as if it were the first (e.g., Jaramillo PA). To avoid this situation, the journal will use a hyphen between the two last names (e.g., Pedro Álvarez-Jaramillo = Álvarez-Jaramillo P), unless the author indicates something different.

10. The ideas expressed in the article are the sole responsibility of the authors.

11. All articles shall have a title, keywords (three to five keywords valid in DeCS), and abstract in English and Spanish. The order of the research articles shall be: title, abstract, keywords, title in Spanish, abstract in Spanish, keywords in Spanish, introduction, methods, results and discussion, acknowledgments (when necessary), and bibliography. This metadata should appear in both English and Spanish.

• For the submission of articles in English by non-native speakers, spelling, grammar and style must be checked. A certificate by a translator, an editor, or a company with recognized experience in editing medical texts may be requested.

12. Abbreviations and acronyms are explained right after their first appearance and continue to be used thereafter.

13. Generic names of drugs must be used; commercial names may be included as a footnote.

14. All the graphic material of the article should be presented according to the directions provided in the journal’s tables and figures guideline.

15. Photographs, graphs, drawings, and diagrams are called FIGURES. They are numbered according to the order of appearance and their captions must be at the bottom left margin. In the case of microphotographs, the magnification used must be indicated. Persons, or their names, should not be identifiable in the photographs, otherwise written permission is required for publication.

16. The Iatreia journal uses the double-blind peer review system, making explicit the anonymity used in the evaluation. To ensure double-blind peer review, the names or academic titles of the authors, or the sponsoring entity, if any, should not appear anywhere in the article file.

17. The editorial process is as follows:

• All submitted manuscripts are first reviewed to determine compliance with formal requirements. The responsible staff member will notify the authors if any adjustments are needed.
• Manuscripts that meet the initial conditions are then reviewed by the journal’s director, who will select those that, in their judgment, meet the standards of academic quality, research rigor, and potential interest to the journal’s readership for possible publication.
• The director will notify the editorial committee on the decision regarding any manuscript deemed appropriate.
• Approved articles are sent to at least two peer reviewers with academic experience, extensive knowledge of the topic, and who are registered in the national peer reviewer database of the National Science, Technology and Innovation System.
• Based on the evaluation and opinions of the reviewers, the editor and editorial committee will decide whether to reject the article or accept it for publication.
• Approved articles will undergo editing and style correction, which includes reviewing writing, coherence, spelling, headings and references, among other aspects.

18. Iatreia supports the clinical trial registration policies of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), and recognizes the importance of these initiatives for the registration and international dissemination of clinical study information in open access. Therefore, only articles reporting clinical research—specifically clinical trials—that have obtained an identification number from a Clinical Trial Registry recognized by the WHO and ICMJE criteria will be accepted for publication. Registration must be completed on platforms such as the International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) or ClinicalTrials.gov. The identification number must be included at the end of the abstract.

19. For additional details on how to format manuscripts and references, it is recommended to consult the document Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals.

Citations in the text

The Vancouver author-number system is used for references citation. These are made through calls with a single Arabic number assigned in order of citation, which must appear inside parentheses. When a work is cited more than once, it will keep the same number.

For instance:

• A single citation:

The Ministry of Health (4) recently estimated that hepatitis...

• More than one citation, separated by a comma without space:

In schoolchildren, physical activity zones predominate (21,40); these data are...

• Correlative citations (the first and the last are mentioned separated by hyphen):

Intracerebral hematomas that are identified with cranial tomography (47-49).

Bibliography

It is numbered according to the order of appearance of the citation in the text with a single Arabic number. Every cited author must be included in the references, and when there is more than 6 of them, only the first 6 names are written followed by “et al.”.

Bibliographic reference managers (EndNote, Zotero, Mendeley) are valuable tools in the research process; however, it is important to verify that the references comply with the Vancouver citation style, as these tools may overlook certain elements.

The purpose of references is to allow readers to consult the original sources; for this reason, it is important that, whenever possible, each reference includes the DOI or retrieval location.

For further guidance, you may consult these Samples of Formatted References for Authors of Journal Articles.