About the Journal

The Guidelines for Authors – Medicina Academica Integrativa

General considerations

Medicina Academica Integrativa is a peer-reviewed open access journal of the University of Mostar, aimed to publish original scientific contributions aimed to increase knowledge and skills in the field of integrative, comprehensive and holistic medicine.
The specific aim is to promote integrative health through multidisciplinary integrative and systematic way as well as to stimulate collaboration and joint scientific projects.

Manuscripts are published in English language only. All submitted manuscripts are given equal consideration, irrespective of the country they originate from, as long as the following main criteria are met:

A manuscript is written and prepared according to the Journal’s Instructions for authors.
A manuscript is within the scope of the Journal, i.e., in the field of new research, perspectives and treatment promoting better understanding health and disease as well higher treatment effectiveness and efficiency in medicine.
Throughout the entire editorial process, Medicina Academica Integrativa follows the best practice guidelines given by the Committee on publication ethics (COPE) (available at: http://publicationethics.org/files/Code%20of%20Conduct.pdf) and Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly work in Medical Journals by International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) (available at: http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/)

Editors at Medicina Academica Integrativa are committed to ensure the integrity and promote innovative and evidence-based sources of information in order to maintain the quality and ensure the impact of the papers published in our Journal, according to the principles set by Sarajevo Declaration on Integrity and Visibility of Scholarly Publications communication (http://www.cmj.hr/2016/57/6/28051276.htm).

Instructions for authors

Manuscripts must be written in standard and grammatical as well as clear and concise scientific English. It is the responsibility of the authors to ensure the quality of the language. The acceptance criteria for all papers are the quality and originality of the research and its significance to our readership.

Submission of the manuscript

Submission of a manuscript implies:

that the work described has not been published before (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture, review or thesis);
that it is not under consideration for publication anywhere else;
that its publication has been approved by all co-authors, if any, as well as by responsible authorities – tacitly or explicitly – at the institute where the work has been carried out.

This must be stated in the Covering letter.

Manuscripts submitted for publication must contain a statement to the effect that all human studies have been approved by a suitably constituted Ethics Committee of the institution within which the work was undertaken and that it conforms to the provisions of the Declaration of Helsinki in 1995 (as revised in Edinburgh 2000). All investigations on human subjects must include a statement that the subject gave informed consent and patient anonymity should be preserved. Any experiments involving animals must be demonstrated to be ethically acceptable. This should be stated in the Subjects sections of the manuscript (see below).

Authors are asked to refrain from submitting papers which have overlap in content with previously accepted papers by the same authors. If the differences between the two are substantial enough that the papers should be considered as distinct, authors are advised to forward copies of both to the Editorial Office.

The editors reserve the right to reject manuscripts that do not comply with the above-mentioned requirements. The author will be held responsible for false statements or for failure to fulfil these requirements.

The manuscript, together with the Covering letter, should be uploaded electronically to the official page of Medicina Academica Integrativa: https://pauk.sum.ba/ojs/mai/

By accessing the online submission you will be guided stepwise through the creation and uploading of the various files. The Editorial Office will acknowledge the receipt of the manuscript and provide it with a manuscript reference number. The reference number of the manuscript should be quoted in all correspondence with the Editorial Office. Each manuscript will be assigned to at least two peer reviewers. Where revisions are sought prior to publication, authors are advised to incorporate any suggestions which they agree would improve their paper. The response letter (separate Word file) should thoroughly respond to each reviewer's comment (numbered), indicating where in the text it has been dealt with, or why the authors disagree or cannnot incorporate it. After the assessors' further comments have been received, the editors will make the final decision, including priority and time of publication, and the right to modify and, if necessary, shorten the material for publication.

Types of papers

Types of accepted papers are given below. Word count for the manuscript includes only the plain text (not tables, figures, abstracts or references).

Contributions will be considered for the following categories:

Original research: max 4000 words, plus structured Summary (max 300 words), 3-5 key words, up to 7 tables and figures
Review: max 4000 words, plus structured Summary (max 300 words), 3-5 key words, up to 7 tables and figures
Narrative review: max 4000 words, plus (un)structured Summary (max 300 words), 3-5 key words, up to 7 tables and figures
Brief report: max 1500 words, including a 100-word Summary, 3 keywords, up to 15 references plus 1 table or 1 figure
Letter to the Editor: 600-800 words, up to 6 references
Case report: max 1000 words, no abstracts or key words, up to 10 references plus 1 table or 1 figure
Book review
Invitation/Announcement

Preparation of the manuscript

Submit the manuscript as an editable Word (preferred) or Rich Text Format (RTF) document.
Use Times New Roman in 12 point size and double line spacing.
All pages should be numbered.
Use a clear system of headings to divide up and clarify the text, with not more than three grades of headings.
Figures should be submitted as separate TIF or EPS format files and the desired position of figures and tables should be indicated in the manuscript.
Footnotes to the text are not allowed.
All measurements must be given in standard SI units.
Abbreviations should be used sparingly and only where they ease the reader's task by reducing repetition of long terms. Initially use the word in full, followed by the abbreviation in the parentheses. Thereafter use the abbreviations.
Drugs should be referred to by their generic names. When a brand name is used, it shall begin with a capital letter and the manufacturer's address details should be given.
Do not use pejorative labels such as 'schizophrenics', instead refer to 'patients with schizophrenia'.

Manuscripts should be presented in the following order:

1. Title page

the title of the paper – should be short, informative and contain the major key words
the full names of the authors and position titles at the respective institutions
the addresses of the institutions at which the work was carried out (addresses for authors other than the correspondence author should contain the department, institution, city and country)
indicate all affiliations with superscript number after the author's name and in front of the appropriate address
corresponding author - the full postal and email address, plus facsimile and telephone numbers, the department, institution, city and country
word count, number of tables and figures

The title page should be uploaded separately. The rest of the manuscript should not contain personal information of the authors.

2. Manuscript (Summary and Text)

The first page of the manuscript should carry on a Summary/Abstract in the region of 300 words, followed by a list of 3-5 key words or short phrases drawn, if possible, from the medical subject headings (MeSH) list of Index Medicus (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/meshhome.html). The Summary should state, whenever applicable, very specifically, the main purposes, procedures, findings, and conclusions of the paper, emphasizing what is new or important.

For original papers and review articles, a structured Summary using the headings is preferred:

Background (questions addressed; principal aims of a review);
Subjects and Methods (design, setting, sample, interventions, chief outcome measures; for reviews sources of data and criteria for their selection);
Results (main findings together with their statistical significance, if possible);
Conclusions (those related to results, limitations as appropriate, clinical and research implications; for reviews principal conclusions and clinical and research implications)

Text

It should be divided by subheadings into the following sections:

Introduction (authors should provide an adequate background and end with the aims of the study);
Subjects and methods (Subjects with ethical considerations and informed consent, Methods, Statistical Analyses; authors should provide sufficient detail to enable possible reproduction of the study);
Results (the results section should simply state the findings of the research arranged in a logical sequence without bias or interpretation)
Discussion (the discussion section should contain interpretation of the results and their comparison with previous studies, also include limitations of the study);
Conclusions (needs to summarize the content and purpose of the paper)

Acknowledgements

The source of financial grants and other funding should be acknowledged. The contribution of institutions, colleagues, technical writers or language editors should be noted. Thanks to anonymous reviewers are not needed. If there are no acknowledgements please state so by putting 'None' in the respective section.

5. Conflict of Interest

Authors are requested to disclose any commercial or other associations that might pooose a conflict of interest in connection with the submitted articles. If there is no conflict of interest please put 'None to declare' in the respective section.

6. Contributors

It is required to declare every author's individual contribution to the manuscript. Every author should be mentioned for his exact work (e.g. design of the study, literature searches and analyses, statistical analyses, interpretation of data, manuscript writing, etc.).

7. References

In the text give the author last name and publication year within parentheses (e.g. Jakovljevic 2008, Sartorius 2009).
If there are two authors, both should be named (e.g. Svrakic & Cloninger 2010, Sher & LaBode 2011).
If there is an article with more than two authors, only the first author's name plus 'et al.' need to be given (e.g. Sartorius et al. 1996, Stinson et al. 2008).
If there is more than one reference by the same author or team of authors in the same year, differentiate between papers by adding a, b, c, etc. to the publication year, both in the text and the list of references.

All references cited in the text are to be listed in the References section at the end of the text, in alphabetical and chronological order under the last name of the first author.

Where there are more than six authors, list the first six authors and use 'et al.'. All works cited must be listed at the end of the paper, ordered alphabetically by first author's name. Names of journals should be abbreviated in the style used in Index Medicus.

References should be listed in the following form:

Grant BF, Hasin DS, Blanco C, Stinson FS, Chou SP, Goldstein RB et al.: The epidemiology of social anxiety disorder in the United States: results from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions. J Clin Psychiatry 2005; 66:1351-61.

Svrakic DM & Cloninger RC: Epigenetic perspective on behavior development, personality, and personality disorders. Psychiatr Danub 2010; 22: 153-66.

Reiter RJ & Robinson J: Melatonin. Bantam Books, NewYork, 1995.

Doghramji K, Brainard G & Balaicuis JM: Sleep and sleep disorders. In Monti DA & Beitman BD (eds): Integrative Psychiatry, 195-339. Oxford University Press, 2010.

8. Tables

Tables should be included on separate pages and numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals (e.g. Table 1). Column headings should be brief, with units of measurement in parentheses. All abbreviations and symbols should be defined in the legend. The table and its legend should be understandable without reference to the text. Desired position of tables should be indicated in the text.

9. Figures

Illustrations such as graphs, diagrams or photographs should also be numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals (e.g. Figure 1) on separate pages, after the Tables. They should contain a short title followed by a concise description. All abbreviations and symbols should be defined in the legend. The figure and its legend should be understandable without reference to the text. Provide a letter stating copyright authorization if figures have been reproduced from another source. Photographs of persons must be made unidentifiable or the subject's written permission must be obtained. Desired position of figures should be indicated in the text.

Copyright

All materials sent for publication will become the property of the Journal until, and if, publication is refused. The material so referred should not be sent elsewhere for publication.

Galley proofs

Unless indicated otherwise, galley proofs are sent to the corresponding authors as Acrobat PDF files and should be returned with the least possible delay. Authors are advised that they are responsible for proof-reading of the text, references, tables and figures for absolute accuracy. Major alterations made in galley proofs, other than essential correction of errors, are unacceptable at this stage and authors may be charged for excessive alterations.

For further information about Medicina Academica Integrativa, as well as full-text articles published in this Journal, visit the homepage: https://pauk.sum.ba/ojs/mai/