Policy Document

Policy document for Rehman Journal of Health Sciences

Rehman Journal of Health Sciences is the official journal of Rehman Medical Institute and is published from Rehman College of Rehabilitation Sciences. It is a peer reviewed journal published biannually in the months of June and December. Rehman Journal of Health Sciences follows guidelines of uniform requirements for manuscripts submission recommended by International Committee of Medical Journals Editors available on www.icmje.org. The journal is open to researches carried out in medical, dental, nursing, rehabilitation, paramedical and health sciences. 

Indexed & abstracted in: The journal is indexed in ICI World of Journal, Academic Resource Index, EuroPub, Directory of Scientific and Technology Periodicals of Pakistan, Directory of Research Journal Indexing, googlescholar,Advanced Sciences Index and PakMediNet. 

Recognized by: The journal is recognized by Higher Education Commission, Pakistan. 

ISSN (Print): 2664-4630 ISSN (Online): 2708-2512

Correspondence Address

Editor-in-Chief

Rehman Journal of Health Sciences
Rehman Medical Institute
Rehman College of Rehabilitation Sciences
5/B-2, Phase-5, Hayatabad, Peshawar, Pakistan

Email: [email protected]

Publisher
Rehman Medical Institute
5/B-2, Phase-5, Hayatabad, Peshawar, Pakistan

Publication Frequency
Biannually (June & December)

 

Scope and objectives of the Journal

Rehman Journal of Health Sciences is the official journal of Rehman Medical Institute and is published from Rehman College of Rehabilitation Sciences. It is a peer-reviewed journal published biannually in the months of June and December. Rehman Journal of Health Sciences follows guidelines of uniform requirements for manuscripts submission recommended by International Committee of Medical Journals Editors available on www.icmje.org. The journal is open to researches carried out in medical, dental, nursing, rehabilitation, paramedical and health sciences.

Types of manuscripts accepted in this journal included original research papers, short communications, review articles, case reports, editorials, book reviews, biographical notes and conference reports.

The aims of the journal are

  • To provide a platform to researchers for dissemination high quality research conducted in the field of health sciences
  • To provide readers information about new researches conducted
  • To be a valid source of scientific communication
  • To encourage and share good publication practices

Authorhsip

Rehman Journal of Health Sciences follows authorship criteria led by ICMJE  which recommends that authorship be based on the following 4 criteria:

  • Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
  • Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
  • Final approval of the version to be published; AND
  • 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.

Peer-review-policy

The manuscript with publication potential will be sent to TWO subject experts for peer review. Based on its quality, novelty, and relevance for publication peer reviewer will evaluate the suitability of the article for publication. A reviewer is given a period of minimum 4 weeks to go through a manuscript and send the suggestions to the editor. A reminder from the editor will be generated if the editor fails to review on time, with additional 4 weeks’ time for review to be completed. If a reviewer is unable to meet the period agreed upon or he declines to review the manuscript, the manuscript will be sent to another reviewer.

The editors has established a system for rapid review of especially important manuscripts. This may include review only by editors or asking reviewers to complete their evaluations within a shorter period of time than is allowed routinely. Authors who seek rapid review should explain why their manuscripts merit such review.

Final decision

Reviewers are instructors to authors and editors. Suggestions with respect to acceptance, revision or rejection of manuscripts may be provided by the editors to reviewers. Editors will acknowledge the recommendations made by the reviewers but final decision will be taken by editor. Suggestions in the manuscript would be returned to authors for reconsideration. Authors will be granted a two weeks’ time period to make corrections as suggested by the reviewers. Authors will be asked to send a detailed covering letter addressing the issues pointed out by the reviewers with a point by point answer describing the corrections done/ reasons for not doing so. If manuscript is found satisfying by authors and editors, it will be accepted for publication in the coming issue. ditor holds the right to make amendments in the accepted article according to format of journal. The joural has a panel of experts on board with variety of knowledge and different viewpoints .Here BLIND PEER REVIEW is followed by a PEER REVIEW. 

Privacy Statement

The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.

Conflict of Interest

At the end of the text, an obligatory subheading, “Conflict of interest”, requires all of the authors and reviewers involved to disclose any financial and/or personal relationships with other people or organizations that can result to bias regarding their work. Financial conflicts include, for example, employment, stock ownership, consultancies, paid expert testimony, honoraria, travel grants, and patents or patent applications, all within a duration of 3 years of beginning the work that has been submitted. We aspect that the editors must also disclose conflict of interest if there is any.

Open Access policy

Rehman Journal of Health Sciences an open access journal which allows the readers to access its content freely without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. There is no subscription charges for accessing or downloading full text articles published in the journal.

The work of this journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic License.

plagiarism Policy

All manuscript submitted to the journal undergo plagiarism check.

The maximum text matching allowed in the journal is 19%.

Copy right information

All authors of the manuscript must confirms that

  • This manuscript has not been submitted or published in another journal
  • The ownership of the submitted manuscript is hereby transferred to Rehman Journal of Health Sciences after acceptance of the manuscript  
  • They substantial contributed to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work
  • They were involved in drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content
  • They are giving final approval of the version to be published
  • They will be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work were appropriately investigated and resolved.
  • They will abide by the policy and regulations of Rehman Journal of Health Sciences updated from time to time.

Appeal Process

The authors has rights to appeal regarding the decision taken by editors or reviewers . They can send a letter to the editor who will forward it to a two member committee for addressal.

COMPLAINTS PROCESS

Rehman Journal of Health Sciences ensure to have transparency at every step. If there is any grievance from a reader, author or reviewer, they are can lodge their complaint against journal and its officials. Complaints or grievances can be directly email to the Editor-in-Chief ([email protected]) which will be send to the grievance committee.  Grievance committee consist of Manager Editor and two senior members from the journal management committee. The committee will investigate the complaint on merit and decision will be taken based on the available evidences. The decision will be forwarded to the concerned authorities.

ALLEGATIONS OF MISCONDUCT

Publications a manuscript in a journal shows relation of trust between an author and publisher. It is expected from the authors that that they would be aware of research misconduct and would be extremely cautious about the research misconduct. However, still there are occasions when such precautions might have not taken intentionally or unintentionally. In such conditions, if a breach of ethics is reported by anyone or it was observed by the editorial team than the journal has the right to refer such cases to our Research Integrity Panel for investigation. The panel will assess the case on merit and will decided about the fate of submitted manuscript.

Our Research Integrity Penal consist of Editor-in-Chief, two senior members from the editorial team and coopted members deemed appropriate and relevant in the area of manuscript submitted for publications. The committee will decide appropriate measures to ensure justice. For this purpose, the authors will be given the right to submit explanation against the allegations raised regarding the manuscript. The record will be corrected as decided by the committee or will be left as it is if the decision against the raised allegations.

Checklist

Please ensure before submission that

  • The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
  • The submission file is in OpenOffice, Microsoft Word, or RTF document file format.
  • Where available, URLs for the references have been provided.
  • The text is single-spaced; uses a 12-point font; employs italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses); and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points.
  • The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines.

                                                                             

 
 

                                                                             

 

Rehman Journal of Health Sciences

 

AUTHOR'S CERTIFICATION

(It is mandatory for all authors to fill and sign this form)

 

 

To,

The Editor-in-Chief Editor,

Rehman Journal of Health Science,

Rehman Medical Institute 5-B/2,

Phase-V, Hayatabad Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.                           

 

Re: Authorship form Rehman Journal of Health Sciences

 

Dear Sir,

 

Title of the manuscript:

Please specify type of work (please tick one the followings)

Original Article

 

Review Article

 

Case Study

 

Letter to the editor

 

Editorial

 

Short communication

 

Other (specify)

 

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

Conflicts of interest might arise when authors have financial or personal interests while carrying out the research. Such interests might influence judgment of the authors and therefore, authors who submit work for publication are required to disclose and acknowledge any form of interests. Keeping in mind the above scenario, please tick either or the two options

Are there any potential conflicts of interests

Yes

 

No

 

If Yes, please provide the details

 
               

 

We all authors of the manuscript confirms that

 

  1. This manuscript has not been submitted or published in another journal
  2. The ownership of the submitted manuscript is hereby transferred to Rehman Journal of Health Sciences after acceptance of the manuscript
  3. We substantial contributed to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work
  4. We were involved in drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content
  5. We gave final approval of the version to be published
  1. We agreed 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 were appropriately investigated and resolved.
  1. We will abide by the policy and regulations of Rehman Journal of Health Sciences updated from time to time.
  2. Mr/Dr_____________________________________ will be corresponding author for the mentioned manuscript

 

Yours sincerely,

 

 

Signature of Author(s):

 

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

 

 

Designation and Qualification of the corresponding author: _______________________________________________________

 

Address for correspondence (Workplace):_____________________________________________________________________

 

Telephone No. Office: ________________________________ Mobile No: ____________________________________________

 

Email: __________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

 

Mandatory Author(s)’s Information

 

 

 

 

 

 

Author

CNIC No.

Qualification

Designation

Institution

Cell No

E-mail

 

Sr. Order

Name

1st Auth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2nd Auth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3rd Auth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4th Auth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5th Auth

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6th Auth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7th Auth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                       

 

 

Submission

All manuscript submissions must include the following:

  1. List of Authors with details: complete names, qualifications, designations, postal addresses, email addresses, contact numbers.
  2. Identification of Principal Author, whose name shall be written as first author. The Principal Author must make a statement that the article has not been submitted to another journal at the time of submission to Rehman Journal of Health Sciences. In case the article has to be withdrawn at a later stage, suficient reasons acceptable to the editorial board shall be submitted by the Principal Author.
  3. Identification of Corresponding Author, whether the first author or another author.
  4. Letter of undertaking by all authors indicating their contribution to the research study and submitted manuscript and that they have read the manuscript prior to submission.
  5. Letters of No Conflicts of Interests by all authors; if a conflict exists, it should be mentioned.
  6. Letter of approval from an Institutional Ethics Review Committee stating that there are no ethical violations or if there were any, these have been compensated for.
  7. Report of Plagiarism Checking is preferable, but not essential; however, authors should be aware that their manuscripts may be returned to them on the basis of plagiarized content.

Submission Charges

At the moment, there are no processing or publications charges for the authors. The purpose of this policy to encourage young researchers who have completed their researches and are unable to submit their work to a work due to limited financial resources.

MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION

Types of manuscripts accepted

  1. Original research papers
  2. Short communications
  3. Review articles
  4. Case reports
  5. Editorials
  6. Book Reviews
  7. Biographical notes
  8. Conference reports

Manuscript requirements

  1. All manuscripts should be submitted online through the journal website after registering at http://www.rjhs.pk
  2. Manuscripts should be in MS Word format, typed in Times New Roman font size 12, double spaced with one inch margins all around the page. The title should be in capital letters, font size 14, center-aligned and not more than 150 letters (including spaces). It should reflect the study objectives and/or main results.
  3. The names of authors should be written below the title with the Principal Author/Investigator written first, unless otherwise speciFied. The First author is also considered the Corresponding Author, unless otherwise specified. Complete names, qualifications, designations, postal addresses, email addresses and contact numbers of all authors are to be submitted.
  4. The Abstract should be of structured format with subheadings of Introduction, Materials & Methods, Results, and Conclusions, followed by 3-10 Key Words basedon MeSH (http://www.pubmed.gov) indexing. Each section of the abstract should be concise and contain content relevant to the study objectives, study design, data collection, main results and brief conclusion; the abstract should contain 200-250 words.
  5. The Introduction should have three components, written as sequential paragraphs: the first portion should Identify and State the Problem Under Study, with supportive references and epidemiological data based on a recent (within last 5 years) literature search; the second part should be a Literature Review, giving a brief account of the major research studies on the problem along with the milestones, highlights and failures to date. Preferably this should be based on research within the last 5-10 years. The third part of Introduction is the Rationale of the Study, where the importance of the study is presented. It should describe why it is necessary to carry out the research, what would be gained from it and what would be lost if the research were not done.
  6. The Aim and Objectives are written at the end of Introduction. Though writing an aim is not essential, writing the objectives are essential and papers would not be accepted without written objectives in the standard

‘To do ...’ and SMART format.

  1. Any Hypothesis, if written, should be based on clear understanding and description of both Null and Alternate states; some justification should be given as to why the alternate hypothesis was developed and what would be the possible consequences of putting the findings in practice should the null get rejected on the basis of the research study.
  2. The Materials & Methods should follow a standard checklist based on Settings, Duration, Population & Sample, Selection Criteria, Study Design, Sampling Technique, Sample Size, Method of Data Collection and Data Analysis. Suficient details of materials used and methods adopted should be provided to enable other researchers to replicate the study in case they wish to do so. For data analysis, mention the main variables, their types, what calculations and analyses were done, what tests of significance were used and the p value considered significant.
  3. The Results should be presented in an integrated manner in tables, figures, illustrations, etc. with supportive and explanatory text. A good approach is to have a table for demographic data, followed by tables or figures with specific data to be presented. Most articles should be able to summarize their findings in up to 4 tables and 2 figures. The captions of tables should be on the top of the table serially numbered (Table 1, Table 2, etc.); the captions for figures should be at the bottom and serially numbered separately (Figure 1, Figure 2, etc.). These should be cited in relevant accompanying text so that the reader can find the results being referred to.
  4. The Discussion is a very important part of an article and should not be used to describe the results in repetition; rather it is meant to explain and interpret the results and provide readers with a comprehensive picture of how the researchers have viewed their results in light of their objectives. It should be mentioned how the results strengthen a hypothesis or help in making a decision regarding the null hypothesis. A recommended technique is to discuss the main findings of the study first, giving reasons for the plausibility or otherwise of the findings. Demographic and other supportive data should be used to further the discussion and should not be used to discuss unimportant aspects of the profiles of subjects. An important component of discussion is to compare and contrast the findings of the study with other similar studies starting from recent local studies and proceeding to national, regional and international levels, as indicated. References for comparisons should also be recent studies with similar objectives and/or study designs; preferably studies with large random samples and strong statistical analyses should be selected for discussion.
  5. The Conclusion follows logically from the discussion and should be a subheading of Discussion rather than a separate entity. It should not be lengthy but composed of a few conclusive sentences that will convey a final summarized message to the reader regarding the utility of the study undertaken.
  6. Recommendations may be written separately, as a subheading, if any follow logically from the findings of the study. They should be based on the present study and not given from other sources such as books or other articles.
  7. Acknowledgements are also a separate heading where needed, written before references. Acknowledge only material, technical or financial support; routine secretarial work and/or proof reading the article are not to be acknowledged.
  8. The References are a separate heading, listing all the literature cited in the study. Referencing should follow the Vancouver style as given in www.icmje.org. The number of references should be justified to no more than three references on a given aspect or issue cited in the text; the total number of references should be between 20 and 30 for an original article; a review article may contain from 30 -40 references. References should be within the last 05 years or at most 10 years from the date of submission of articles; exceptions can be made for important historical references, but these should not be more than 5% of the total references. 
  9. The journal accept Vancouver referecing style for publications in the journal.

The authors must confirm that they have substantial contribution to (adopted from ICMJE guidlines)

  • the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
  • Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
  • Final approval of the version to be published; AND
  • 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.