Guidelines for Authors

  • Information

    The Oman Medical Journal was first published in 1984, it is an international peer-reviewed general medical journal published 6 times per year. The Editor in Chief is Dr Ibrahim Al-Zakwani. The journals owner and publisher is the Oman Medical Specialty Board. Online versions are made freely available to all institutions.

    Aims and Scope

    The Oman Medical Journal was first published in 1984, it is an international peer-reviewed general medical journal published 6 times per year.

  • Online Submission

    Manuscripts should be submitted online via the Editorial Manager online manuscript submission and review system:

    Editorial manager

    Editorial Policies for Authors

    Most of the Oman Medical Journal’s editorial policies for authors are summarized in these instructions. For any questions that are not answered here please email at omj@omsb.org.

  • Editorial Office Contact Information for additional copies and enquiries

    Oman Medical Journal
    Oman Medical Specialty Board
    Way #443, Bldg. 18, Block 244,
    North Azaiba, Muscat,
    Sultanate of Oman

    (+968) 2418 1050 / 1082 / 1186
    omj@omsb.org
    (+968) 2418 1199

  • Authorship Criteria and Contributions and Authorship Form
    Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work and one or more authors should take responsibility for the integrity of the work as a whole, from inception to published article. According to the guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), as revised in 2013, authorship credit should be based on the following 4 criteria:
    • substantial contributions to conception or design of the work, or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; and
    • drafting of 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. All those designated as authors should meet all four criteria for authorship, and all who meet the four criteria should be identified as authors. Those who do not meet all four criteria should be acknowledged.
    All authors (ie, the corresponding author and each coauthor) must read, complete, and submit an electronic Authorship Form with signed statements on Authorship Responsibility, Criteria, and Contributions; Confirmation of Reporting Conflicts of Interest and Funding; and Publishing Agreement. Which can be downloaded here. The authors also must certify that the manuscript represents valid work and that neither this manuscript nor one with substantially similar content under their authorship has been published or is being considered for publication elsewhere (see also Duplicate/Previous Publication or Submission).
  • Role of the Corresponding Author
    The corresponding author will serve on behalf of all coauthors as the primary correspondent with the editorial office during the submission and review process. If the manuscript is accepted, the corresponding author will review an edited manuscript and proof and will be identified as the corresponding author in the published article. The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that the conflict of interest disclosures reported in manuscript are accurate, up-to-date, and consistent with the information provided in each author’s ICMJE Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest (which can be downloaded here)
    Changes in Authorship
    Authors should determine the order of authorship among themselves and should settle any disagreements before submitting their manuscript. Changes in authorship (ie, order, addition, and deletion of authors) should be discussed and approved by all authors. Any requests for such changes in authorship after initial manuscript submission and before publication should be explained in writing to the editor in a letter or email from all authors.
    Duplicate/Previous Publication or Submission
    Manuscripts are considered with the understanding that they have not been published previously in print or electronic format and are not under consideration by another publication or electronic medium. Copies of related or possibly duplicative materials (ie, those containing substantially similar content or using the same or similar data) that have been previously published or are under consideration elsewhere must be provided at the time of manuscript submission.
  • Conflicts of Interest and Financial Disclosures

    A conflict of interest may exist when an author (or the author’s institution or employer) has financial or personal relationships or affiliations that could influence (or bias) the author’s decisions, work, or manuscript. All authors are required to complete and submit the ICMJE Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest: This form will be requested after a manuscript has been submitted, but authors should also include conflict of interest disclosures in the Disclosure section of the manuscript. Authors are expected to provide detailed information about all relevant financial interests, activities, relationships, and affiliations (other than those affiliations listed in the title page of the manuscript) including, but not limited to, employment, affiliation, funding and grants received or pending, consultancies, honoraria or payment, speakers’ bureaus, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, royalties, donation of medical equipment, or patents planned, pending, or issued.
    Please see the ICMJE definitions and terms of disclosures, here.

    ICMJE Definitions and Terms

  • Ethical Approval of Studies and Informed Consent

    For all manuscripts reporting data from studies involving human participants, formal review and approval, or formal review and waiver, by an appropriate institutional review board or ethics committee is required and should be described in the Methods section. For investigations of humans, state in the Methods section the manner in which informed consent was obtained from the study participants (ie, oral or written) and whether participants received a stipend. Editors may request that authors provide documentation of the formal review and recommendation from the institutional review board or ethics committee responsible for oversight of the study.

    Editorial Review and Publication

    Authors will be sent notifications of the receipt of manuscripts and editorial decisions by e-mail. During the review process, authors can check the status of their submitted manuscript via the online manuscript submission and review system, Editorial Manager.

  • Editorial and Peer Review

    All submitted manuscripts are reviewed initially by an Oman Medical Journal board member. Manuscripts are evaluated according to the following criteria: material is original and timely, writing is clear, study methods are appropriate, data are valid, conclusions are reasonable and supported by the data, information is important, and topic has general medical interest. From these basic criteria, the board members assess a paper’s eligibility for publication. Manuscripts with insufficient priority for publication are rejected promptly. Other manuscripts are sent to expert consultants for peer review. Peer reviewer identities are kept confidential, and author identities are not made known to reviewers. The existence of a manuscript under review is not revealed to anyone other than peer reviewers and editorial staff. Peer reviewers are required to maintain confidentiality about the manuscripts they review and must not divulge any information about a specific manuscript or its content to any third party without prior permission from the journal editors. Final decisions regarding manuscript publication are made by an editor/board member who does not have any relevant conflicts of interest.

  • Editing

    Accepted manuscripts are edited in accordance with house style, and returned to the corresponding author for approval. Authors are responsible for all statements made in their work, including changes made during editing and production that are authorized by the corresponding author.

  • Categories of Article

    Oman Medical Journal publishes Editorials, Original Articles, Reviews, Brief Communications, Case Reports, Clinical Quizzes, Clinical Notes, and Letters to the Editor. Topics of interest include all subjects that relate to the practice of medicine and the betterment of public health worldwide. The most frequently published types of articles are described herein.

    • Original Article

      These reports typically include randomized trials, intervention studies, cohort studies, case-control studies, epidemiologic assessments, other observational studies, surveys with high response rates, cost-effectiveness analyses and decision analyses, and studies of screening and diagnostic tests. Each manuscript should clearly state an objective or hypothesis; the design and methods (including the study setting and dates, patients or participants with inclusion and exclusion criteria and/or participation or response rates, or data sources, and how these were selected for the study); the essential features of any interventions; the main outcome measures; the main results of the study; a comment section placing the results in context with the published literature and addressing study limitations; and the conclusions. Data included in research reports must be original and should be as timely and current as possible. A structured abstract is required; for more information, see instructions for preparing structured Abstracts.

      Maximum length: 4000 words of text (not including abstract, tables, figures, and references) with no more than a total of six tables and/or figures and 50 references.

      Brief Communication

      These manuscripts are short reports of original studies or evaluations or unique, first-time reports of clinical case series. A structured abstract is required; for more information, see instructions for preparing structured Abstracts.

      Recommended length:1000 words maximum (not including abstract, tables, figures, and references) with no more than a total of two tables and/or figures and 25 references.

      Clinical Quizzes

      Short quiz made up of real-life clinical case providing some background and enough information to answer questions relating to the diagnosis and pathophysiology/management of the condition. Text should include Acknowledgements and References.

      Maximum length: 750 words, with no more than three images and up to five references.

    • Editorials

      An editorial should address an issue in medicine/science that is topical and of interest to the readership. Editorials should promote critical thinking and should express the opinion of the author(s), which should be based on an interpretation of facts that are supported by references. Also, Editorials should have a sequence of logical sections related to their content and purpose. Editorials are welcomed by the journal and are generally solicited by the Editor-in-Chief; however, authors wishing to submit an unsolicited editorial are invited to contact the Editor-in-Chief prior to submission to screen the proposed topic for relevance.

      Maximum length: 1000 words and up to 15 references. Editorials contain no figures or tables.

      Review

      Comprehensive analyses of specific topics. These manuscripts are systematic, critical assessments of literature and data sources pertaining to clinical topics, emphasizing factors such as cause, diagnosis, prognosis, therapy, or prevention. All articles or data sources should be searched and critically evaluated, and the search and selection process should be described in the manuscript. The specific type of study or analysis, population, intervention, exposure, and tests or outcomes should be described for each article or data source. The data sources should be as current as possible, ideally with the search having been conducted within several months of manuscript submission.

      Maximum length: 4000 words of text (not including abstract, tables, figures, and references), with no more than a total of four tables and/or figures and no more than 75 references.

      Clinical Notes

      Narratives describing an important issue in clinical medicine, public health, health policy, or medical research in a scholarly, thorough, well-referenced, systematic or evidence-based manner.

      Maximum length: 1000 words, with no more than one table/figure and 10 references.

    • Letter to the Editor

      Letters discussing a recent Oman Medical Journal article should be submitted within 12 weeks of the article’s publication in print. Letters received after this time will rarely be considered. They should be double-spaced and a word count should be provided. Letters may have no more than three authors. The text should include the full name, and institutional affiliation for each author and the e-mail address for the corresponding author. Letters must not duplicate other material published or submitted for publication and should not include unpublished data. Letters not meeting these specifications are generally not considered. Letters being considered for publication ordinarily will be sent to the authors of the Oman Medical Journal article, who will be given the opportunity to reply. Letters will be published at the discretion of the editors and are subject to abridgement and editing for style and content.

      Maximum words: Letters should not exceed 400 words of text and five references, one of which should be to the recent Oman Medical Journal article.

      Case Reports

      Observations of diseases, clinical findings, or treatment. Text should be arranged as follows: Abstract; Introduction; Case Report; Discussion; Conclusion; Acknowledgements; References.

      Maximum length: 1000 words (not including abstract, figures and references), with no more than three figures and 20 references.

      Letter in Reply

      Maximum words: Replies by authors should not exceed 500 words of text and six references. They should have no more than three authors.

  • Manuscript Submission
    All manuscripts must be submitted online via Editorial Manager. At the time of submission, complete contact information (affiliation, postal/mail address, email address, and telephone numbers) for the corresponding author is required. First and last names, email addresses, and institutional affiliations of all coauthors are also required. After the manuscript is submitted, the corresponding author will receive an acknowledgment confirming receipt.

    A manuscript number will be issued after an editorial board member has performed an initial review. Authors will be able to track the status of their manuscripts via the online system. After manuscript submission, authors of papers under consideration for publication will be sent a link to the Authorship Form to complete and submit.
    Cover Letter
    Include a cover letter and complete contact information for the corresponding author (affiliation, postal/mail address, email address, and telephone number).

    The letter should include the following: an introduction stating the title of the manuscript and why your study is important and relevant to the Oman Medical Journal’s readership, what question your research answers, your major experimental results overall findings, and most important conclusions (without copying the abstract), a statement that the manuscript has not been published and is not under consideration for publication in any other journal, a statement that all authors approved the manuscript and its submission to the journal, and whether the authors have published or submitted any related papers from the same study .
  • Manuscript Style
    Manuscripts should be prepared in accordance with the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals.
    Manuscript Components
    Include a title page, abstract, text, references, and as appropriate, figure legends, tables, and figures.
    Manuscript File Formats
    For submission and review, submit manuscripts as a Word file, please do not submit your manuscript in PDF format. Kindly find the Word template for each manuscript type in the download section. Please follow the structure and font size indicated in the templates.
  • Title page
    The title page should include a word count for text only (eg, not including abstract, acknowledgment, or references) and the full names and current affiliations of all authors.
    Title
    Titles should be concise, specific, and informative and should contain the key points of the work. Please limit the length of titles to 150 characters for reports of research and other major articles and 100 characters for Editorials, Viewpoints, Commentaries, and Letters. For scientific manuscripts, overly general titles are not desirable and questions and declarative sentences should be avoided. For reports of clinical trials, meta-analyses, and systematic reviews, include the type of study as a subtitle (eg, A Randomized Clinical Trial, A Meta-analysis, A Systematic Review). For reports of other types of research, do not include study type or design in the title or subtitle.
    Abstracts
    Include an abstract of 200-400 words. For original articles and Brief Communications include a structured abstract summarizes the objective, methods, results, and conclusions of the article. An unstructured abstract should be provided for Review Articles, and Case Reports. Abstracts are not required for Editorials, Clinical Quizzes, and Letters. No information should be reported in the abstract that does not appear in the text of the manuscript.
    Abstracts for Original Articles
    Reports of original data should include a structured abstract 200–400 words using the headings listed below. For brevity, parts of the abstract may be written as phrases rather than complete sentences. Each section should include the following content:

    Objective: State the precise objective or study question addressed in the report (eg, “To determine whether…”). If more than one objective is addressed, the main objective should be indicated and only key secondary objectives stated. If a priori hypothesis was tested, it should be stated.

    Methods: Describe the basic design/methods of the study including a paragraph on statistical analysis. The institution name should also be included here. For all manuscripts reporting data from studies involving human participants, formal review and approval, or formal review and waiver, by an appropriate institutional review board or ethics committee is required and should be described here.

    Results: The main outcomes of the study should be reported and quantified, including baseline characteristics and final included/analyzed sample. Include absolute numbers and measures of absolute risks (such as increase/decrease or absolute differences between groups), along with confidence intervals (for example, 95%) or p values. Approaches such as number needed to treat/assess may be included when appropriate. Measures of relative risk also may be reported (eg, relative risk, hazard ratios) and should include confidence intervals.

    Conclusions: Provide only conclusions of the study that are directly supported by the results. Give equal emphasis to positive and negative findings of equal scientific merit. Also, provide a statement of relevance indicating implications for clinical practice or health policy, avoiding speculation and overgeneralization. The relevance statement may also indicate whether additional study is required before the information should be used in clinical settings.

    Abstracts for Reviews
    Review articles should include an abstract of 200–250 words including one or two sentences describing the clinical question or issue and its importance in clinical practice or public health, the objective of the review, what evidence has been used for the review, the findings, and any conclusions.
  • Methods and Statistics
    Put a general description of methods in the “Methods” section. Restrict tables and figures to those needed to explain the argument of the article and to assess its support. Use graphs as an alternative to tables with many entries; do not duplicate data in graphs and tables. Avoid non-technical uses of technical terms in statistics, such as random (which implies a randomizing device), normal, significant, correlations, and sample. Define statistical terms, abbreviations, and most symbols. Provide a brief description of statistical tests used and levels of significance to the Statistical Analysis paragraph in the Methods section.

    Describe statistical methods with enough detail to enable a knowledgeable reader with access to the original data to reproduce the reported results. When possible, quantify findings and present them with appropriate indicators of measurement error or uncertainty (such as confidence intervals). Avoid relying solely on statistical hypothesis testing, such as the use of p values, which fails to convey important quantitative information. Give details about randomization. Describe the methods for and success of any blinding of observations. Report complications of treatment. Give numbers of observations. Report losses to observation (such as dropouts from clinical trial).
    Abbreviations
    Use only standard abbreviation. Do not use abbreviations in the title or abstract and limit their use in the text. Expand all abbreviations at first mention in the text. In general; abbreviations should be those used by British Chemical and Physiological Abstract.

    Keywords: Include three to ten keywords relating to the manuscript and that are found in PubMed’s MESH database.

    Names of Drugs, Devices, and Other Products
    Use nonproprietary names of drugs, devices, and other products, unless the specific trade name of a drug is essential to the discussion.
    Reproduced Material
    Oman Medical Journal does not republish text, tables, figures, or other material from other publishers, except under rare circumstances. Please delete any such material and replace with originals.
    Acknowledgments
    A statement disclosing conflicts of interest, including specific financial interests and relationships and affiliations relevant to the subject of the manuscript, must be included in the Acknowledgment section of the manuscript. Failure to do so may result in delayed evaluation and review of the manuscript. General terms of contribution and credits should be enlisted in this section.
    Units of Measure
    Laboratory values are expressed using conventional units of measure, with relevant System International (SI) conversion factors expressed secondarily (in parentheses) only at first mention. The metric system is preferred for the expression of length, area, mass, and volume. For more details, see the Units of Measure conversion table on the website for the AMA Manual of Style.

    AMA Manual of Style

    • References

    Authors are responsible for the accuracy and completeness of their references and for correct text citation. Number references in the order they appear in the text; do not alphabetize. In text, tables, and legends, identify references with superscript numerals after a comma or full stop. When listing references, follow Vancouver Style. List all authors and/or editors up to six; if more than six, list the first three followed by “et al.”

    Note: Journal references should include the issue number in parentheses after the volume number.

  • Examples of reference style
    Book Chapter
    • S.M. Breathnach. Drug Reaction. In Rook et al. Text Book of Dermatology. 7th Edition. London, 2004. p.71.1-71.180, 74.1-74.20.
    Book
    • J. The Quest for Certainty. New York: Minton, 1929.
    Report
    • Ministry of Health, Oman. Annual Health Report 2007, Directorate General of Planning, Department of Information and Statistics, 2008.
    • Akutsu T. Total heart replacement device. Bethesda, MD: National Institute of Health, national Heart and Lung Institute; 1974 Apr. Report no: NIH-NHLI-69-2185-4.
    Online sources
    • Online book or website: Tardiff A, Harvey P, Cole III, Ralph E, et al. Dacryocele. Available at: www.fetus.net. Accessed May 10, 2006.
    • Online journal article: Miyamotto O, Auer RN. Hypoxia, ischemia and brain necrosis. Neurology [serial online] 2000; 54:162-271. Available at: www. Neurology.org. Accessed April 18, 2006.
    Others
    • Pregnancy after 15. From www.marchoftimes.com. Accessed Sept 2004.
  • Tables
    Number all tables in the order of their citation in the text. Include a brief caption for all tables that explains the table without knowledge of the text. Include all tables at the end of the manuscript file. Refer to Categories of Articles because there may be a limit on the number of tables for the type of manuscript.
    Figures
    Number all figures (graphs, charts, photographs, and illustrations) in the order of their citation in the text. All figures must have captions that explain the figure independent of the text. For initial manuscript submissions, figures must be of sufficient quality for editorial assessment and peer review. If the manuscript is accepted, authors may be asked to provide figures that meet the Oman Medical Journal requirements. Graphs, charts, titles, and legends in accepted manuscripts will be re-created or edited according to Oman Medical Journal style and standards prior to publication.

    All graphs should be created in Word, and attached as a separate page when submitting the manuscript. Files should be saved in editable format.

  • Manuscript Checklist

    • Review manuscript submission requirements in these instructions and in our online manuscript submission and review system.
    • Include a cover letter.
    • Designate a corresponding author and provide a complete affiliation, postal/mail address, telephone number, and e-mail address.
    • Provide first (given) and last (family) names, e-mail addresses, and institutional affiliations for any coauthors.
    • On the title page, include a word count for text only, exclusive of title, abstract, references, tables, and figure legends.
    • Provide an abstract that conforms to the required abstract format.
    • Check all references for accuracy and completeness. Put references in proper format in numerical order, making sure each is cited in sequence in the text.
    • Inform all coauthors that each will need to complete the ICMJE Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest. Oman Medical Journal will request this disclosure form after the manuscript is submitted.
    • Include all authors’ potential conflicts of interest, including relevant financial interests, activities, relationships, and affiliations in the Acknowledgment section of the manuscript. The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that the disclosure information in the Acknowledgment section of the manuscript is consistent with that reported in each author’s ICMJE Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest.
    • Include all sources of financial and material support and assistance along with detailed information on the roles of each sponsor/funder in each of the following: “design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; and preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript” in the Acknowledgment section of the manuscript.
    • If appropriate, include information on institutional review board/ethics committee approval or waiver and informed consent.