Submissions

Author Guidelines

INSTRUCTIONS FOR MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION AND SUBMISSION

These instructions aim to guide authors on the guidelines adopted by the Journal of Nursing at UFJF for manuscript evaluation and the publication process. These instructions are based on the "Guidelines for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals: Writing and Editing for Biomedical Publications," Vancouver style, formulated by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).

Journal Sections

Each issue will have the following structure: editorial, original articles, case report articles, experience report articles, reflection articles, review articles and review protocols (scope and systematic).

Editorial Policy: The journal prioritizes the publication of unpublished articles intended for the dissemination of original research results, also accepting systematic and integrative reviews, case reports, experience reports, thematic reflections, and editorials. Its original publications occur in regular or special issues, preceded by the peer-review process. The partial or total presentation of content in another journal is not allowed, nor its reproduction without the formal consent of the Editor, except for abstracts or preliminary reports published in scientific meeting proceedings.

Review Process: The journal has an electronic publication management system identified by a numerical protocol (identification number) when authors submit their manuscripts online. Authors can monitor the submission process either through the Editor's contact with the manuscript's responsible party or by using the SEER system, using the protocol number received at the time of submission.

All manuscripts are initially reviewed by the Editor-in-Chief regarding their suitability for the focus and scope of the Journal of Nursing at UFJF. If suitable for the journal, they are forwarded to Associate Editors to start the editorial flow, which includes the following steps:

1. Initial Evaluation: Checking the formatting and structure according to the checklist; verification of the required documentation and evaluation of the manuscript's content merit for Nursing and related areas. Manuscripts that do not comply with the guidelines, due to incompleteness or inadequacy, are returned to the authors for correction as indicated by the editorial flow editor, regarding the necessary adjustments. If the request is not met after the second correction, the manuscript is archived and, if there is an interest in publishing it, it must be resubmitted, starting a new submission process.

2. Peer Review: Only manuscripts that meet the previous requirements are sent for peer review by experts with recognized thematic and methodological competence (minimum of two), using the journal's adopted instrument. Articles are evaluated for merit, originality, methodological and content relevance, suitability for publication, and relevance to Nursing and related areas.

Review is confidential, with the names of ad hoc consultants and authors omitted. In case of disagreement among peers in the first round of evaluation, the article is sent for a third review. If a conflict of interest is identified by the reviewers, the manuscript is forwarded to another evaluator.

The deadline for returning reviews is a maximum of fifteen (15) days from the date of acceptance for evaluation by the reviewers. In case of refusal, new reviewers will be invited. If the refusal persists, two members of the Editorial Board will evaluate the article.

3. Editorial Board Evaluation: Final deliberative phase with the authority to decide on the acceptance or rejection of the manuscript, the need for changes, and autonomy to establish the publication schedule (when authors will receive confirmation that the manuscript will be in press).

After each of these steps, manuscripts may be accepted, reformulated, or rejected, with any editorial decision communicated to the corresponding author. The reviewers' opinions will be directed to the corresponding author, with a period of ten (10) days for return with the requested corrections. After this time, if there is no response from the corresponding author, the manuscript will be archived and can be resubmitted if the author is interested. This same procedure will apply in case of manuscript rejection.

Submission

Every manuscript will be submitted for evaluation exclusively through the online system at https://periodicos.ufjf.br/index.php/enfermagem/submission/wizard in Portuguese.

Journal of Nursing at UFJF follows the recommendations of the Code of Conduct of Best Practices Guidelines for Journal Editors from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) (http://publicationethics.org/), the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), http://www.icmje.org, and the Singapore Statement on Research Integrity https://wcrif.org/guidance/singapore-statement.

Authors (up to six) can access the step-by-step submission tutorial. The responsibility for the content, writing, opinions, and concepts contained in the manuscript lies entirely with the authors, not necessarily reflecting the position/opinion of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Nursing at UFJF.

In case of approval and authors' interest in enhancing the impact of their manuscript, translation into another language (English and/or Spanish) should be provided according to the journal's recommendations, with the financial cost borne by the authors. Journal of Nursing at UFJF does not assume responsibility for grammatical errors and reserves the right to request proofreading from authors when necessary.

The electronic system is programmed to receive manuscripts when all fields and metadata are completed, along with attached documents, namely:

1. Completed Author Checklist by the author;
2. Copy of the Research Ethics Committee opinion or a statement requesting its waiver in cases where the manuscript type does not include such a recommendation;
3. Letter to the editor. Pay attention to each section according to the guidelines in the checklist;
4. Cover page, as per the guidelines in the checklist;
5. File of the article itself properly formatted according to the Journal of Nursing Template. This document should contain the manuscript to be submitted, WITHOUT AUTHORS' IDENTIFICATION. Pay attention to each section of the manuscript according to the guidelines in the checklist;
6. Declaration of Responsibility and Author Contribution.

Confirmation of manuscript receipt will occur after documentation verification, and the resolution of pending issues and corrections will be awaited for the stipulated time in the communication. If the requests are not met promptly, the submission will be automatically canceled.

Proofreading

Upon acceptance of the manuscript for publication, Proofs (in PDF format) will be sent to the corresponding author for reading, checking, and necessary corrections. These should be sent to the responsible editor duly revised within seventy-two (72) hours for final approval and correction.

Corrections at this stage are of an orthographic nature and verification of illustrations. Extensive modifications that involve content changes will be reevaluated by reviewers, causing a delay in publication.

If there is no response from the author within 72 hours, the Editor will consider the sent Proof version as the final manuscript.

Publication

Articles are published online in open access in Portuguese with abstracts in three languages (Portuguese, English, and Spanish), with the option to publish the full manuscript in one or two other languages.

The average time for submission to publication is estimated to be six to eight months, due to the extension of deadlines requested by reviewers and the semi-annual periodicity. The publication time will be extended for manuscripts whose authorship corresponds to the State of Minas Gerais and the city of Juiz de Fora, due to endogeneity criteria, respectively regional and local, with a maximum space for each endogeneity of 30% in the composition of the issue.

Manuscript Archiving Policy: Manuscript submissions evaluated as rejected or canceled will be immediately removed from the journal's archives, and those accepted for publication will be archived for a period of five years, after which they will be deleted.

Errata: Correction requests should be submitted within a maximum of 30 days after the article's publication, as stated in the "About" section.

CATEGORIES OF MANUSCRIPTS

• Editorial: Refers to topics of relevance to the scientific, academic, and socio-political context.
• Research: Includes articles with quantitative and qualitative methodological approaches that are original and unpublished, contributing to knowledge construction in Nursing and related areas. Follow guidelines for special cases.
  • Clinical Trial Registrations: The Journal of Nursing at UFJF supports policies for clinical trial registrations from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), recognizing the importance of these initiatives for the international registration and disclosure of information on clinical studies, in open access. Therefore, only clinical research articles that have received an identification number in one of the Clinical Trial Registries, validated by WHO and ICMJE criteria, will be accepted for publication. The Universal Trial Number (UTIN) should be registered at the end of the abstract.
• Theoretical Review: Critical and orderly evaluations of the literature on topics of importance for nursing and related areas, which can be:
  • Systematic Review: Uses a research method conducted through the synthesis of results from original, quantitative, or qualitative studies, aiming to answer a specific and relevant question for Nursing and/or related areas. Describes in detail the process of searching for original studies, the criteria used for selecting those included in the review, and the procedures employed in synthesizing the results obtained from the reviewed studies (which may or may not be meta-analysis or metasynthesis procedures). The premises of systematic review are: exhaustion in the search for studies, justified selection of studies by explicit inclusion and exclusion criteria, and evaluation of methodological quality, as well as the use of statistical techniques to quantify the results.
  • Integrative Review: Uses a research method that presents the synthesis of multiple published studies and allows general conclusions about a particular area of knowledge, systematically and orderly conducted, contributing to a deepening understanding of the investigated topic. It is necessary to follow standards of methodological rigor, clarity in presenting results so that the reader can identify the real characteristics of the studies included in the review. Stages of integrative review: identification of the theme and selection of the research question or hypothesis for the study, establishment of criteria for inclusion and exclusion of studies/samples, or literature search, definition of information to be extracted from selected studies/categorization of studies, evaluation of studies included in the review, interpretation of results, presentation of the review/synthesis of knowledge.
• Experience and Case Reports: Description of cases, interventions, and experiences in Nursing and related areas.
• Reflective Articles: Texts of special relevance that contribute to thinking about Nursing and related areas.
• Protocols for Systematic and Scope Reviews: Texts that must follow high methodological rigor, be short, with relevant characteristics for nursing research (up to 8 pages). The manuscript should contain the following criteria: ABSTRACT, including objective, inclusion criteria, and methods (up to 150 words). The article should include the following sections: INTRODUCTION (Theoretical foundation and research question), INCLUSION CRITERIA (Participants, intervention, comparison, outcome, and study type), METHODS (search strategy, study selection, assessment of methodological quality, data extraction, data analysis, and other relevant information, if applicable), and REFERENCES (Vancouver style).

MANUSCRIPT PARTS

Every manuscript should have the formatting, structure, and sequence as described in the checklist.

Manuscript content: The relevant elements of the manuscript are: 1) Title; 2) Abstracts and Descriptors in Portuguese, English, and Spanish; 3) Introduction; 4) Objective(s); 5) Methodology; 7) Results; 8) Discussion; 9) Conclusion and/or Final Considerations; 10) References; and 11) Acknowledgments, if any.

Journal of Nursing at UFJF recommends the use of guidelines available at http://www.equator-network.org/ to support the manuscript, and the method should include information about the application of the guideline according to the type of research.

Title and/or Subtitle: Should be understandable, concise, reflect the manuscript's content, and not contain abbreviations.

Abstract and Descriptors: The main research results should be mentioned. Descriptors should be three to five, selected according to the nomenclature of the Health Sciences Descriptors/BIREME (DECS), available at: http://decs.bvs.br/, and/or Mesh, available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.mesh. They should be in line with the manuscript's content and follow the respective language's abstracts.

Introduction: The content should have a logical sequence, covering problematization, object, state of the art, and justification. Acronyms should be detailed the first time they are mentioned. The literature review should present depth and relevance to the theme to the extent of explaining the state of the art.

Objective: Objectives should be explicit or can be replaced by research questions when suitable for the specificity of the methodological design.

Methodology: Explain the manuscript's design; the location where it was conducted; the population or sample involved with the respective inclusion and exclusion criteria; participant sizing, recruitment criteria, instrument, and data collection process; criteria used to outline them; hypotheses or assumptions, data collection date; data analysis process; and ethical aspects with the citation of the Ethics Committee opinion number or justification for exemption.

Results: Clear and objective description of the results. The use of illustrations, tables, graphs, or text to explain them is possible. Non-textual content should not exceed five and should not repeat their content, giving priority to presentation forms that best highlight the evidence obtained from collected data.

Discussion: The main evidence should be discussed in light of the literature (with a predominance of those published in the last five years at the national and international levels). Emphasize knowledge production or contributions to Nursing that may emerge from the data. Do not repeat the results, nor emphasize generalizations without support.

Conclusion and/or Final Considerations: Objectives or research questions should be answered in light of the advances achieved. The theoretical and/or practical applications arising from the mentioned research, highlighted limitations, and contributions to the health and nursing field should be explicit.

References: Should be written following the Vancouver style, available at the URL http://www.icmje.org/urm_main.html.

Acknowledgments: It is optional and with filling in a specific file, using a maximum of two lines.

Published articles will be licensed under the Creative Commons CC BY https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.pt

The concepts, opinions, and conclusions expressed in the articles, as well as the accuracy and origin of citations and references, are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Editorial Board.

PUBLICATION FEE

Journal of Nursing at UFJF does not charge editing fees.

TRANSLATION TO ENGLISH

Starting from January 2024, all submissions, acceptances, and/or publications in the Journal of Nursing at UFJF must be translated into English and reviewed for Portuguese text. Authors must arrange for the translation and submit a statement issued.