Instructions for authors 

 

Journal of Rural and Community Psychiatry (JRCPsy) invites reviews/opinion/commentary/original research article/ case report for its upcoming  issue. Queries and submission can be send to the editor at editor.jrcpsy@gmail.com. 

 

Editorial Process

All the articles published in the journal are with prior understanding that they have never been published or accepted in another journal previously or sent to or are in consideration simultaneously. Manuscripts must be prepared in accordance with “Uniform requirements for Manuscripts submitted to Biomedical Journal” developed by International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (2006).The manuscripts submitted will be first reviewed by the editors. Manuscripts with insufficient originality, major scientific flaws or absence of importance of message will be rejected at this stage itself. The manuscripts then will be sent to two or more expert reviewers while maintaining the anonymity of the contributors. Mostly within a period of ten to twelve weeks decision of the manuscript will be conveyed to the authors. Once accepted, journal reserve the right to edit or format the manuscript as per journal requirements. There is no submission or publication fee.

 

Ethics: Manuscript submitted for publication should fulfil the ethical guidelines. Informed consent and assent wherever required should be taken and confidentiality should be maintained. The ethical standards of experiments must be in accordance with the guidelines provided by the CPCSEA and World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki on Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Humans for studies involving experimental animals and human beings, respectively. The journal will not consider any paper which is ethically unacceptable. A statement on ethics committee permission and ethical practices must be included in all research articles under the ‘Materials and Methods’ section.

 

Types of paper

1. Original articles: These papers are findings of high quality planned original research such as experimental designs, outcome studies, case control series and surveys, randomized control trials, intervention studies, studies of screening and diagnostic tests and cost effectiveness analysis. The word limit is 5000 words excluding references, figures, tables and a structured abstract of not more than 250 words.

2. Brief Research Communication: These will include manuscripts containing not more than 1 table / figure, with short reports of original studies or evaluations, service oriented research which points towards a potential area of scientific research or unique first time reports. The word limit is 1500 words with maximum 20 references and a structured abstract of not more than 150 words.

3. Review article: These are systemic, critical assessment and understanding with exhaustive review of literature of the concerned topic by the experts of the fields only and authors who wish to write can contact the editor beforehand to ensure that it is within the scope and requirements of journal. Word limit for review article is 5000 words excluding references and abstract. The article should be attached with a brief CV of the first author of maximum100 words.

4. Case reports: These should contain new/ interesting / rare cases of clinical significance or with implications for management. The word limit is 1500 words and up to 10 references with an abstract of 150 words.

5. Literary Psychiatry: Original contributions are welcome from patients, caretakers, doctors with focus on mental health. It can be poetry, drama, fiction, perspective from patients / caretaker/ health professionals view or any suitable material. The word limit is 1500 words. 

 

Manuscript Submission

Manuscripts should be submitted online in word document through e-mail along with a covering letter, title page and the manuscript to the editor at  editor.jrcpsy@gmail.com.  

Manuscript must be written in good grammatically correct British English Language. Leave margins of 1 inch from all the four sides and number pages consecutively on the right top, beginning with the title page. The manuscript should be written in Times New Roman, font size 11 with 1.15 spacing. Headings should be bold and in uppercase.

 

Covering letter

1. All authors should declare details regarding any conflict of interest.

2. Source of funding should be mentioned.

3. All authors to declare that manuscript is free of plagiarism. Journal strictly abhors such misconduct and will lead to rejection of the manuscript. 

4. That the manuscript is not sent simultaneously, under consideration or has been accepted in another journal.

 

Title Page should include following details:

1. Type of manuscript (Original/ Review/ Case report/ Brief communication/ literary).

2. Title of the article.

3. Running title or short title not more than 50 characters.

4. Each author full name, degree, designation, affiliation, address and email and individual contributions towards the manuscript.

 

All persons designated as authors must qualify authorship criteria. Participation solely in acquisition of funding or data or as general support by departmental chair does not justify authorship. It is the responsibility of the principal author or corresponding author to inform all the co -authors regarding submission and revision of manuscript and journal is not responsible for any conflict of interest arising out of manuscript. 

1. Corresponding author complete details with contact number. 

2. Total number of pages, photographs, tables and figures and separate word counts for abstract and text (excluding abstract and references).

3. Acknowledgement: Specify contributions that need acknowledging. 

4. If the manuscript was presented as part of a meeting, the organization, place and exact date on which it was read should be mentioned.

 

Second Page

It should contain the abstract, main manuscript and at least three keywords preferably those in MeSH vocabulary. Abstract with the appropriate word limit should be structured into following sections: Introduction, Aims and Objectives, Methods, Results and Conclusion. For case reports abstract can be sectioned as Background and aims, case details and implications. Please take care that all terminology and notation used is widely understood. Abbreviations and acronyms should be spelled out in full at their first occurrence in the text.

 

Introduction: State the purpose of article and summarize keeping in previous studies the rationale of the current research.

 

Methods: Describe in sufficient detail methods/techniques used (the principles of these methods should not be described if readers can be directed to easily accessible references or standard texts).

 

Results: Explain results clearly, concisely and logically with the use of tables and figures wherever appropriate. However do not duplicate presentations. It is not appropriate to present means or medians exclusively; please provide measures of values distributions. 

 

Discussion: A clear presentation of results obtained within the appropriate context of available knowledge highlighting any trends or points of interest.

Strengths & limitations of the study should be mentioned.

 

Conclusions:  Significance and implications of the work briefly summarized in this section.

 

Tables and Figures

The journal is printed in black and white. All tables and figures should be in black and white. They should be self- explanatory. Number tables and figures consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text and place any table notes below the table body. Please submit tables as editable text and not as images. Each figure should have a caption which describes the illustration, and that can be understood independently of the main text. The caption should be given in the text, and not on the figure itself. Make sure all figures and tables will fit inside the text area. Obtain permission for all fully borrowed, adapted and modified tables and provide a credit line in the footnote.

 

References: 

Journal follows the Vancouver referencing style. So please follow the prescribed format of referencing. Please ensure that all work cited in the text is included in the reference list, and that the dates and authors given in the text match those in the reference list. Identify references in text, tables, and legends by Arabic numerals in superscript in the order of appearance in the text. References cited only in tables or figure legends should be numbered in accordance with the sequence established by the first identification in the text of the particular table or figure. Please include DOIs where available. Avoid using abstracts, unpublished observations, and personal communication as references. Please refer http://www.icmje.org for other types of references such as electronic media, newspaper items, etc. List the first six contributors followed by et al.

1. Standard journal article: Seshadri L, George SS, Vasudevan B, Krishna S. Cervical intraepithelial neoplasia and human papilloma virus infection in renal transplant recipients. Indian J Cancer 2001;38:92-5. 

2. Personal author(s): Ringsven MK, Bond D. Gerontology and leadership skills for nurses. 2nd ed. Albany (NY): Delmar Publishers; 1996.

3. Chapter in a book: Phillips SJ, Whisnant JP. Hypertension and stroke. In: Laragh JH, Brenner BM, editors. Hypertension: pathophysiology, diagnosis, and management. 2nd ed. New York: Raven Press; 1995. pp465-78.

Revision

Manuscript may have to be revised before final acceptance to attain the journal standard. Major changes in the article cannot be done by the editors and hence it is requested that whenever advised during the course of peer review process authors must revise their papers within two weeks otherwise the contribution will be considered withdrawn.

 

Copyright transfer

Authors are expected to submit copyright transfer form signed by all authors with the manuscript or within seven days of submission failing which manuscript will not be processed further.

 

Changes to authorship

If you wish to add, delete or rearrange the authors once the paper is accepted:

Before online publication: The corresponding author should contact the editor and  provide (a) the reason for the change, and (b) the written consent of all co-authors, including the authors being added or removed. Paper will not get published if the above requisite are not provided.

After online publication: Any requests to add, delete, or rearrange author names in an article published in an online issue will follow the same policies as noted above and will be published as a corrigendum in the next possible issue. 

Proofs

Proofs will be sent by e-mail to the listed corresponding author. Any corrections must be returned within one week of receipt and should only cover typesetting errors. All corrections must be returned to us in one communication. Proofreading is the sole responsibility of the authors.

 

AUTHOR INQUIRIES

For further queries please contact:

Dr Sidharth Arya

Editor, Journal of Rural and Community Psychiatry,

Associate Professor (SDDTC)

Institute of Mental Health, 

UHS, Rohtak

Haryana

Email: editor.jrcpsy@gmail.com