Oxford Journals

Instructions to authors

OPEN ACCESS OPTION FOR AUTHORS

International Journal for Quality in Health Care authors have the option, at an additional charge, to make their paper freely available online immediately upon publication, under the Oxford Open initiative. After your manuscript is accepted, as part of the mandatory licence form required of all corresponding authors, you will be asked to indicate whether or not you wish to pay to have your paper made freely available immediately. If you do not select the Open Access option, your paper will be published with standard subscription-based access and you will not be charged.

Optional Oxford Open charges:
For a corresponding author based at an institution with an online subscription to International Journal for Quality in Health Care:
Regular charge - £900 / $1800 / €1350
List B developing country charge** - £450 / $900 / €675
List A developing country charge** - £0 / $0 / €0

For a corresponding author based at an institution that does not subscribe to the online journal:
Regular charge - £1500 / $3000 / €2250
List B developing country charge** - £750 / $1500 / €1125
List A developing country charge** - £0 /$0 / €0

*Visit http://www.oxfordjournals.org/jnls/devel/ for list of qualifying countries.

Orders from UK will be subject to a 17.5% VAT charge. For orders from the rest of the EU, we will assume that the service is provided for business purposes, please provide a VAT number for yourself or your institution and ensure you account for your own local VAT correctly.

The above Open Access charges are in addition to any page charges and colour charges that might apply.

If you choose the Open Access option you will also be asked to complete an Open Access charge form online. You will be automatically directed to the appropriate version of the form depending on whether you are based at an institution with an online subscription to International Journal for Quality in Health Care. Therefore please make sure that you are using an institutional computer when accessing the form. To check whether you are based at a subscribing institution please use the Subscriber Test link for International Journal for Quality in Health Care.

Author Self-Archiving/Public Access policy

For information about this journal's policy, please visit our Author Self-Archiving policy page.

Manuscript submission

Manuscripts must be submitted online. Once you have prepared your manuscript according to the instructions below please visit the online submission web site.

1. GENERAL REQUIREMENTS

All papers submitted will be evaluated on the basis of scientific merit and for their contribution to an increased understanding of the quality of health care.

1.1 Language
The language of the Journal is English as generally used in English-speaking countries. The Journal cannot provide editing services to correct papers to conform to such usage. Accordingly, authors for whom English is not the first language are strongly advised to obtain English-language editing services before submitting papers to the Journal, since reviewers are likely to judge unfavourably papers that cannot be clearly understood. If you would like information about one such service please click here. There are other specialist language editing companies that offer similar services and you can also use any of these. Authors are liable for all costs associated with such services.

As an experiment, the Journal provides now the possibility of preliminary editorial review of papers written in Spanish. The purpose of the preliminary review is to determine whether the paper merits the effort and expense of a translation into English. Encouragement to translate does not constitute a commitment to publish the paper in the Journal. After translation, the paper will be submitted and peer-reviewed as any other paper. Interested authors should send their papers by email to Dr Rosa Suñol, Spanish language editor, at the following address: fad@fadq.org. Papers written in Spanish should not be submitted through the standard online submission system.

1.2 Authorship
All authors must fulfill the criteria of authorship as specified in the "Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals" (http://www.icmje.org/) . Necessary criteria for authorship include: substantial participation in the conception and design of the work, execution of the work, analysis of the data, contribution of methodological expertise. All authors should also contribute to the writing of the manuscript and approve the final version.

1.3 Acknowledgements
Contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship as set out above may be named, with their permission, in the Acknowledgements. The corresponding author is responsible for obtaining written permission from all persons named in the Acknowledgements, and must include the following statement in the cover letter: 'I have obtained written permission from all persons named in the Acknowledgement.

1.4 Conflict of interest
At the point of submission, IJQHC's policy requires that each author reveal any financial interests or connections, direct or indirect, or other situations that might raise the question of bias in the work reported or the conclusions, implications, or opinions stated - including pertinent commercial or other sources of funding for the individual author(s) or for the associated department(s) or organization(s), personal relationships, or direct academic competition. When considering whether you should declare a conflicting interest or connection please consider the conflict of interest test: Is there any arrangement that would embarrass you or any of your co-authors if it was to emerge after publication and you had not declared it?

As an integral part of the online submission process, corresponding authors are required to confirm whether they or their co-authors have any conflicts of interest to declare, and to provide details of these. If the corresponding author is unable to confirm this information on behalf of all co-authors, the authors in question will then be required to submit a completed Conflict of Interest form to the Editorial Office. It is the corresponding author’s responsibility to ensure that all authors adhere to this policy.

If the manuscript is published, Conflict of Interest information will be communicated in a statement in the published paper.

1.5. Overlapping publications
The journal aims to publish only original work. We accept to consider a manuscript for publication with the understanding that it has not been published nor submitted for publication elsewhere. If any materials that are closely related to the manuscript submitted to IJQHC have been published or submitted for publication elsewhere (e.g., paper based on the same or closely related data), the corresponding author should submit these documents along with the manuscript as "supplementary data", and explain in the cover letter in what way the manuscript intended for IJQHC is original.

1.6 Reproduced material
Authors wishing to reproduce material that has been previously published elsewhere must obtain permission in writing from the copyright holder for the source document.

2. PREPARING THE MANUSCRIPT

2.1 Types of articles
The journal publishes the following types of peer-reviewed articles (see editorial) http://intqhc.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/16/2/105

Research articles: reports of original research on quality of care. Novice authors may want to read an editorial about how to write a research article http://intqhc.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/16/3/191
Review articles: systematic reviews, quantitative or narrative, of issues related to quality of care
Methods articles: didactic articles about methods in quality of care research or management
Quality in practice: case-studies of general interest
Perspectives on quality: reflective articles about quality in health care

We also welcome the following types of submissions, which will be assessed by the editor (not peer-reviewed):

Editorials about current issues in quality of of health
Letters to the editor Preference will be given to letters addressing matters raised by papers published in recent issues of the Journal.

2.2 General formatting
Manuscripts should be structured as follows:

Title page
Abstract and key words
Main body of text (introduction, methods, results, discussion)
Acknowledgments
References
Tables
Figure legends
Figures

Use double-spacing throughout the manuscript, including the references and tables.
Do not use footnotes or endnotes.
Because the readership of the journal is multidisciplinary, please avoid jargon and abbreviations as much as possible.
The authors' names should not appear within the body of the manuscript or on the figures so that author anonymity may be maintained during the review process.

2.3 Recommended length
For regular peer-reviewed articles, appropriate length for the main body of text is 2500 to 3000 words, excluding abstract, references, tables and figures. The number of references should 20 to 30 (more may be allowed for review articles). There should be no more than 5 tables or figures. However, brevity is not an end in itself. We will consider longer papers when a study is particularly important, and when the topic requires more extensive development.
All types of peer-reviewed publications can also be submitted as brief articles of 1200-1500 words, 3 tables or figures, and up to 15 references.

Editorials should be up to 1000 words in length, and may contain 1-2 tables or figures, and up to 10 references.
Letters to the editor should be limited to 400 words, and up to 10 references.

2.4 Title page
Please provide a title page with the following information:

Manuscript title (80 characters maximum).
Names and affiliations of contributing authors.
Correspondence details (including fax and email address) for corresponding author.
Running title (30 characters maximum).
Word count for the abstract.
Word count for the text of the manuscript.

The title page should be uploaded as a separate file from the manuscript and given the file designation ‘Title Page’. This will ensure the title page is not visible to reviewers during peer review, but that the information will be relayed to Production if your paper is accepted.

2.5 Abstract
Page 2 of the manuscript should include the title of the article followed by the abstract of up to 250 words. No information should be reported in the abstract that does not appear in the text of the manuscript. Wording should be concise and present only the essential elements. 'Telegraphic' statements without verbs are acceptable. Abbreviations are not allowed.

title of the paper or article (80 spaces maximum)
running title (not more than 30 spaces)
two word counts: one for the abstract and one for the text of the manuscript

The abstract should be structured. Headings for Research articles:

Objective
Design
Setting
Participants
Intervention(s)
Main Outcome Measure(s)
Results
Conclusions

Headings for Review articles:

Purpose
Data sources
Study selection
Data extraction
Results of data synthesis
Conclusion

Headings for Quality in practice articles:

Quality problem or issue
Initial assessment
Choice of solution
Implementation
Evaluation
Lessons learned

For Methods articles and Perspectives on quality articles the format of the abstract is free, but structure is recommended

2.6 Keywords
Three to six keywords or concise key phrases should be given for indexing purposes. Use of terms from the Medical Subject Headings List in Index Medicus is preferred.

2.7 Text
Research papers should consist of the sequence Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion. For other papers the sequence should replicate the structure of the abstract.

2.8 Reporting of statistical analyses
Focus the statistical analysis at the research question.

Report simple analyses first, then only more sophisticated results.

Provide information about participation and missing data.

As much as possible, describe results using meaningful phrases (E.g., do not say "beta" or "regression coefficient", but "mean change in Y per unit of X"). Provide 95% confidence intervals for estimates.

Report the proportions as N (%), not just %.
Report most results with two significant digits (E.g., 2.1 not 2.137).

Report p values with 2 digits after the decimal, 3 if <0.01 or near 0.05. E.g., 0.54, 0.03, 0.007, <0.001, 0.048. Do not report p values greater than 0.05 as "NS".

Always include a leading zero before the decimal point (e.g., 0.32 not .32).

Do not report tests statistics (such as chi-2, T, F, etc).

2.9 Acknowledgment
At the end of the text include acknowledgements of individuals who were of direct help in the preparation of the study.

2.10 Funding
Details of all funding sources for the work in question should be given in a separate section entitled 'Funding'. This should appear after the 'Acknowledgements' section.

The following rules should be followed:

The sentence should begin: ‘This work was supported by …’
The full official funding agency name should be given, i.e. ‘National Institutes of Health’, not ‘NIH’ (full RIN-approved list of UK funding agencies) Grant numbers should be given in brackets as follows: ‘[grant number xxxx]’
Multiple grant numbers should be separated by a comma as follows: ‘[grant numbers xxxx, yyyy]’
Agencies should be separated by a semi-colon (plus ‘and’ before the last funding agency)
Where individuals need to be specified for certain sources of funding the following text should be added after the relevant agency or grant number 'to [author initials]'.

An example is given here: ‘This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health [AA123456 to C.S., BB765432 to M.H.]; and the Alcohol & Education Research Council [hfygr667789].’

Oxford Journals will deposit all NIH-funded articles in PubMed Central. See http://www.oxfordjournals.org/for_authors/repositories.html for details. Authors must ensure that manuscripts are clearly indicated as NIH-funded using the guidelines above.

2.11 References
Please ensure to include the heading "References" at the top of the references page.

Make sure that all references are cited (between square brackets) in numerical order in the text. Also make sure that, on the references page, they are numbered according to the order in which they appear.

Number references consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text. Identify references by Arabic numerals. Check the accuracy of the references against original sources.

Favour easily available references published in peer-reviewed journals. Avoid grey literature, and documents in languages that will not be understood by most readers. Avoid references to internet sites, except when unavoidable, because internet addresses tend to be unstable.

Format references in the Vancouver style (http://www.icmje.org/). For journal articles please do not include the issue numbers. For journal name abbreviations, use the abbreviation as published on Medline. Please see the example below.

Examples of the correct formats are as follows:

Journal article
1. Laouri M, Kravitz RL, Bernstein SJl. Underuse of coronary angiography: application of a clinical method. Int J Qual Health Care 1997; 9: 15-22.

Book
2. Steiner DL, Norman GR. Health Measurement Scales: A Practical Guide to their Development and Use. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.

Foreign language text; Chapter in book
3. Molina CG, Giedion U, Rueda MC, Alviar M. Public investment in health and distribution of subsidies in Colombia. In Study of Influence of the Public Social Investment (in Spanish). Santafé de Bogotá: Fedesarrollo, Departamento Nacional de Planeación

Organization as Author
4. National Centre for Clinical Audit. Information for Better Healthcare. London: NCCA, 1997.

Multi-volume book
5. Pan American Health Organization. Health in the Americas. Washington, DC: PAHO, 1998: Vol. 2, p. 108.

Website
6. Federal Ministry of Labour, Health and Social Affairs, Austria: http://www.bmags.gv.at Accessed [Date (i.e. date reference item accessed on organization website)].

'Unpublished observations' and 'personal communications' should not appear among the references. These should be inserted in parentheses in the text, and letters of permission from all individuals cited in this way should accompany the manuscript. Manuscripts that have been accepted for publication but have not yet been published may appear in the references: include the authors, manuscript title, and name of the journal followed by '(in press)'.

2.12 Tables
The total number of tables and figures should not exceed five.

The table header should permit the table to be understood without reference to the text. Number tables in the order in which they are cited in the text.

Every column in the table should have a heading. Define all abbreviations and indicate the units of measurement for all values. Explain all empty spaces or dashes. Indicate footnotes to the table with superscript Arabic numbers cited in order as you read the table horizontally.

2.13 Figures
Figures must be supplied in electronic form. Letters, numbers and symbols should be clear throughout and should be large enough to remain legible when reduced for publication.

Legends should be typed on a separate page from the figure(s), double-spaced, and numbered with Arabic numerals corresponding to the figures. When symbols, arrows, numbers or letters are used to identify parts of a figure, each should be explained clearly in the legend or as a footnote. The legend should permit the figure to be understood without reference to the text.

3. SUBMISSION

3.1 Initial submission
All manuscripts intended for publication should be submitted through the Journal's online submission system. (http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/intqhc)

The copyright transfer form should be completed and sent to Oxford University Press only after the manuscript has been accepted for publication.

Before you start the online submission process, do the following:

Prepare your manuscript, according to the instructions above, as a single word-processor file, including title page, abstract, main body of text, references, tables and figures. You will be asked to upload this file at the end of the submission process. The system will allow you to submit your manuscript as several separate files, but this is impractical for reviewers.
If necessary, prepare any supplementary materials that are not intended for publication as separate files - e.g., related manuscripts, extensive appendices that would be posted on the journal website but not printed, PowerPoint slides, study instruments, etc. These should be uploaded as separate files.
Have the manuscript file open as you submit. You will be asked to insert (cut and paste) the title, running title, abstract and key words into appropriate fields.
Have the names, professional addresses and email addresses of all authors at hand. You will be asked to enter these into appropriate fields.
Do two separate word counts, on the abstract and on the main body of text. You will be asked to insert these into appropriate fields.
Prepare the submission letter. You will be asked to paste the letter into a box.
If you are submitting a manuscript that does not have an abstract (letter to editor, editorial), type "none" into the abstract box. The system will not let you continue if you leave the abstract box blank.

3.2 Resubmission
Do not submit a revised paper as though it were a new manuscript. It is important that your manuscript keeps the same reference number throughout the review process. The system will automatically number your revised versions (ex: INTQHC 2005-00027, INTQHC 2005-00027.R1, ...).

Enter your Author Center and select the "Revised Manuscript" button. Then submit revised manuscripts via the same online system. You will be also be asked to insert your answers to the editor's and reviewers' comments into a box. Then click on the title of your manuscript to upload the revised version of the manuscript.

When responding to comments, it is best to identify each of the reviewer's/editor comments separately (either copy or abbreviate) and to respond below. Indicate how you modified the paper in response to the comment, or why a modification is not appropriate.

3.3 Production process
Decisions of the Editor are final. All material accepted for publication is subject to copyediting.

Authors will receive page proofs of their articles before publication, and should answer all queries and carefully check all editorial changes at this point. Authors are responsible for the scientific content of their articles. Corresponding authors of all articles will receive a free URL for the online paper. Offprints may be ordered directly from the publisher. An order form will be sent with the page proofs.

3.4 Copyright
It is a condition of publication in the journal that authors assign an exclusive licence to the International Journal for Quality in Health Care and Oxford University Press. This ensures that requests from third parties to reproduce articles are handled efficiently and consistently and will also allow the article to be as widely disseminated as possible. In assigning the licence to publish, authors may use their own material in other publications provided that the Journal is acknowledged as the original place of publication, and provided that Oxford University Press is notified in writing and in advance. Address letters of notification to: Rights and New Business Development, Journals Division, Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK. Tel: +44 (0) 44 1865 354490 or 353695; Fax: +44 (0) 1865 353485. E-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org