Submission guidelines

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Please read the guidelines in full before submitting your manuscript.
Manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned.

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This Journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics.

The Journal recommends that authors follow the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals formulated by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).

Sage is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the author responsibilities section on the Sage Journal Author Gateway.

We also encourage you to familiarize yourself with our Editorial Policies and our Publication Ethics Policies.

Sage Publishing disseminates high-quality research and engaged scholarship globally, and we are committed to diversity and inclusion in publishing. We encourage submissions and peer review from a diverse range of authors and reviewers from across all countries and backgrounds. Read our diversity, equity, and inclusion pledge.

There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this journal. Open access options are available – see below.

Please read the guidelines below then submit your manuscript here.

Access: Subscription
Accepts preprints? Yes
Identity transparency: Double anonymized

Please note that this journal is online-only and does not offer print copies.

There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this journal.

Optional open access publishing is available for a fee via the Sage Choice program, and Open Access agreements, where authors can publish open access either discounted or free of charge depending on the agreement with Sage. Find out if your institution is participating by visiting Open Access Agreements at Sage. Open Access agreement eligibility is determined by the corresponding author’s affiliation matching an agreement at acceptance. For more information on Open Access publishing options at Sage please visit Sage Open Access.

For information on funding body compliance, and depositing your article in repositories, please visit Sage’s Author Archiving and Re-Use Guidelines and Publishing Policies.

Your article must be within the scope of the journal and be of sufficient quality. If not, it will not be reviewed. Please read the journal’s Aims and Scope to see if your article is appropriate.

The manuscript must be your original work, you must have the rights to the work, and you must have obtained and be able to supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you, including figures, illustrations, tables, lengthy quotations, or other material previously published elsewhere.

Learn more about future issues by clicking here.

Article types

View the current Call for Papers for Creative Nursing.

Please visit the Sage Journal Author Gateway for guidance on producing visual and/or video abstracts.

Creative Nursing considers manuscripts on topics related to both the practical and theoretical aspects of health care, including:

  • Original qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods studies
  • Systematic and narrative reviews
  • Scale development papers related to the current theme
  • Theory development and evaluation papers related to the current theme
  • Reports of quality improvement projects
  • Interviews with clinicians and other experts in fields related to the theme
  • Personal stories and first-hand accounts related to the theme (Submit under the category of Discussion Papers)
  • Commentaries and opinion pieces of international interest
  • Reviews of relevant books, articles, and other media
  • Discussion papers
  • Research Methods papers consistent with the year's theme

Please note that we encourage format free submission for initial submission as long as one consistent reference style is used throughout the manuscript.

However, at the revision stage, we ask you to use APA7 style. If APA 7 style is not followed, the manuscript may be rejected.

Original articles

Randomized Controlled Trials will be considered for review only if they have been registered.

Word limit: Quantitative papers must be no longer than 6000 words in length, including abstract and reference list. Qualitative papers, including mixed methods studies, must be no more than 8000 words including abstract and reference list.

Abstract: Provide a structured abstract of no more than 150-200 words outlining the study’s background, purpose, methods, conclusions, and implications for practice. Do not include statistical measures in the abstract; rather, present results in simple language for a wide range of readers. Avoid sweeping statements about implications for practice in favor of relevant and clear implications. (For example, “Nurse managers can use the results to develop practice guidelines for improving quality of compassionate care in oncology settings.”).

Quantitative Research: The manuscript should include a succinct overview of literature, problem statement, and description of conceptual and theoretical framework if used, methodology, methods, validity and reliability, discussion (including limitations), conclusions, and implications for research/practice/education. Instead of general headings for introduction and background, use headings which reflect the content presented. (For example, “importance of compassionate care”, “factors affecting nurses’ self-efficacy”).

Special Statement/Guidelines for Reporting of P-values

The use of p-value thresholds to establish statistical significance has long been a standard practice in academic research, including as a basis for decision making. However, the American Statistical Association (ASA) has determined that reliance on p-values alone is not warranted and has the potential for abuse. The ASA has issued a statement on the use of p-values to determine statistical significance. We are providing direct quotes to emphasize ASA’s stance on this issue.

  • “P-values can indicate how incompatible the data are with a specified statistical model.”
  • “P-values do not measure the probability that the studied hypothesis is true, or the probability that the data were produced by random chance alone.”
  • “Scientific conclusions and business or policy decisions should not be based only on whether a p-value passes a specific threshold.”
  • “Proper inference requires full reporting and transparency.”
  • “A p-value, or statistical significance, does not measure the size of an effect or the importance of a result.”
  • “By itself, a p-value does not provide a good measure of evidence regarding a model or hypothesis.” (Wasserstein & Lazar, 2016, p. 131-132).

Reference:Wasserstein, R. L. & Lazar, N. A. (2016). The ASA statement on p-values: Context, process, and purpose. The American Statistician, 70(2), 129-133. https://doi.org/10.1080/00031305.2016.1154108

In accordance with the ASA’s statement, Creative Nursing now requires authors of quantitative studies to adhere to the following guidelines for reporting p-values in their manuscripts. Manuscripts not following these guidelines will not be considered for peer review.

  1. If presenting results in terms of statistical significance, use the p-value threshold of 0.005 for instead of 0.05. A p-value threshold of 0.005 has two advantages. First, a two-sided p-value of 0.005 corresponds to a Bayes Factor of approximately 14 to 26 compared to a Bayes Factor of 2.5 to 3.4 for p-value of 0.05 in favour of alternative hypothesis. Second, p-value of 0.005 can reduce the false positive rate to 5% compared to a false positive rate of 33% or above with a p-value of 0.05. Refer to the following paper for more details: Benjamin, D. J., Berger, J. O., Johannesson, M., Nosek, B. A., Wagenmakers, E. J., Berk, R., ... & Johnson, V. E. (2018). Redefine statistical significance. Nature Human Behaviour, 2(1), 6-10. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-017-0224-0
  2. DO NOT use the word “statistically significant” when reporting p-values of 0.05. Instead use the word “suggestive”. Put simply, p-value of 0.005 should be reported as “statistically significant” and p-values of 0.05 should be reported as “suggestive”.
  3. Report p-values as continuous quantities (p=0.003 or p=0.005). P-value can never be 0.00, always report values 0.00 as p<0.01.
  4. Report confidence intervals along with the p-value. However, discuss the upper and lower limits of the confidence interval and whether the limits have any practical implications, without consideration of the notion that the confidence interval contains the null value. Please note: confidence intervals are merely estimates and are subject to error. Therefore, use the following additional guidance (Point 4) when reporting confidence intervals and continuous p-values.
  5. You can choose to report any of the following values along with your continuous p-values and confidence intervals.
    • Report Bayes Factor Bound (BFB) (1/[−e p log p]) indicates the upper bound largest ratio of data-based odds of an alternative hypothesis relative to the null hypothesis. For example, if you obtained a p-value of 0.01, it corresponds to a Bayes Factor of 1.60:1. This means that if both alternative and null hypothesis were considered equally plausible, there still remains a 38% chance that the null hypothesis is true. To understand how to convert p-values to BFB, please refer to the following article: Benjamin, D. J. & Berger, J. O. (2019). Three recommendations for improving the use of p-values. The American Statistician, 73(sup1), 186-191. https://doi.org/10.1080/00031305.2018.1543135
    • Report continuous p-values along with the false positive risk (FPR), which offers an assessment if the significant p-value obtained in your study is false positive. To estimate the FPR, please refer to the following article for guidance. Colquhoun, D. (2019). The false positive risk: A proposal concerning what to do about p-values. The American Statistician, 73(sup1), 192-201. https://doi.org/10.1080/00031305.2018.1529622. You can also use the online tool for using FPR: http://fpr-calc.ucl.ac.uk/
    • Estimate the Analysis of Credibility (AnCred) which after consideration of the width of confidence intervals and their bounds estimates the evidential weight in order to assess the credibility of significant and non-significant findings. The AnCred estimate is provided in the form of Critical Prior Interval (CPI) metric. Please refer to the following source for detailed description on how to estimate CPIs. Matthews R. A. J. (2018). Beyond 'significance': Principles and practice of the Analysis of Credibility. Royal Society Open Science, 5(1), 171047. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.171047
  6. Additionally, if possible we also encourage authors to consider Bayesian statistics for hypothesis testing rather than relying on frequentist statistics. However, we understand that a transition to Bayesian statistics in scientific community would be gradual. Therefore, we ask authors to adhere to our updated guidelines on reporting of p-values.

Qualitative Research: The manuscript should include a succinct overview of literature, problem statement, and description of conceptual and theoretical framework if used, methodology, methods, study rigor, discussion (including limitations), conclusions, and implications for research/practice/education.

When reporting qualitative designs, rather than saying that a qualitative approach was used, clearly state the methodology, such as interpretative phenomenology, descriptive phenomenology, descriptive qualitative, interpretative description, grounded theory, narrative research, and case study. Themes and sub-themes should be stated clearly and supported with sparingly used participant quotes using pseudonyms. Verbatim quotes should be edited for ease of reading. If the qualitative research was conducted in a language other than English, please include both the translated and the native language verbatim quotes whenever possible. Also, we recommend you provide a Supplemental File including participants’ quotes in the Native Language. “Thematic analysis” and “content analysis” are not accepted as study designs for qualitative research; these are methods for data analysis and should be stated as such. Similarly, “focus group” is not a methodology, but a method of data collection, and should be presented as such.

We also ask authors to avoid misusing “data saturation” as a criteria for finalizing your qualitative sample. There are other methods (e.g., information power, conceptual depth criteria) for ensuring adequacy of sample size in qualitative research based on the nature of the design. If data saturation is used an indicator for sample size adequacy, please also consider using Comparative Method for Theme Saturation (CoMeTS) method for operationalizing saturation by assessing the degree and extent of data saturation during data analysis rather than during data collection. The following two paper can be used to inform your decisions regarding sample size estimation and reporting in qualitative studies.

  • Younas, A., Masih, Y., & Sundus, A. (2025). Alternatives to 'saturation' for greater transparency in reporting of sample size decision-making in qualitative research. Evidence-based Nursing28(2), 77–80. https://doi.org/10.1136/ebnurs-2025-104292
  • Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2021). To saturate or not to saturate? Questioning data saturation as a useful concept for thematic analysis and sample-size rationales. Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health13(2), 201-216. https://doi.org/10.1080/2159676X.2019.1704846

Mixed Methods Research: The manuscript should include a succinct overview of literature, problem statement, and description of conceptual and theoretical framework if used, methodology, methods, study rigor (use legitimation criteria), discussion (including limitations), conclusions, and implications for research/practice/education. Mixed methods manuscripts should provide a clear justification for using this approach, and a mixed methods research purpose/question and/or separate qualitative/quantitative and mixed questions for each phase. The integration of data must be made explicit; manuscripts lacking this evidence will be rejected. We are unable to publish mixed methods studies as two separate manuscripts.

Systematic and Narrative Reviews

Word limit: Reviews must be no more than 8000 words including abstract and reference list.

Abstract: Provide a structured abstract of no more than 150-200 words outlining the background, review question, type of review, methods, conclusions, and implications for research/practice/education.

All systematic reviews should be reported in accordance with PRISMA guidelines for systematic reviews and meta-analyses.

When presenting specific types of reviews:

  • Systematic reviews and meta-analyses of quantitative studies and randomized control trials should be registered with PROSPERO. If not registered, provide the protocol as a supplementary file for editorial review.
  • Critical reviews are only considered for review if they focus on developing frameworks, models, or policy guidelines and implications.

The main text of reviews should be structured using the headings: Introduction, Review Question, Design, Literature Search, Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria, Critical Appraisal (if applicable), Data Extraction, Data Analysis and Synthesis, Findings, Discussion (including Limitations), Conclusions, and Implications for Research/Practice/Education.

Scale Development

Word Limit: Scale Development papers should be no longer than 3000 words including abstract and reference list.

Abstract: Follow the abstract guidelines for quantitative research. If mixed methods design was used for scale development, follow the guidelines for mixed methods study and present the paper following the guidelines for mixed methods studies.

Scale development papers are only considered if they report the development of a new scale. We do not consider the publication of translated instruments. Scale development papers should provide a copy of the scale for readers and researchers. We only publish scale development papers if the scale is provided for researchers’ use without charging any fee to the researchers.

Theory Development and Evaluation

Word Limit: Theory Development and Evaluation Papers should be no longer than 6000 words including abstract and reference list.

Abstract: Follow the abstract requirements outlined under general guidelines.

Theory Development and Evaluation Papers are considered if they offer new insights into existing theories beyond basic analysis, and support the premises with adequate research. Critical appraisals of existing theories are also encouraged. We do not publish Grand Nursing Theories; only middle range and situation specific theories are considered for review.

Discussion Papers

Word Limit: Discussion Papers should be no longer than 5000 words including abstract and reference list.

Abstract: Follow the requirements outlined under general requirements.

Discussion papers may focus on contemporary issues relevant to nursing practice, education, or policy. These papers may present philosophical or ethical analyses of issues promoting international debate. The papers should be framed under the following headings: Abstract, Debatable Issue, Purpose, Background Analysis of the Issue (provide supporting literature), Discussion, and Implications for research/practice/education. These headings can be tailored to individual papers such as personal accounts of nursing specific issues or first hand accounts related to journal’s theme.

Reports of Quality Improvement Projects

Word Limit: Quality Improvement Reports should be no longer than 3000 words including abstract and reference list.

Abstract: Follow the requirements for abstracts under general guidelines.

Quality Improvement Reports should describe innovative programs, implementation efforts, and evaluative strategies to improve the care provided to a specific population in a hospital, unit, or other health care facilities. The papers should be framed under the headings: Abstract, Context, Methods, Results, Discussion (including Limitations), Conclusions, and Lessons Learned or Implications for Practice.

Under context, provide details about the nature and type of setting, details of health-care personnel, and patient population. Under methods, provide detailed information about the type of innovation, how it was developed and implemented, intended and measured outcomes, and the effect of innovation on setting, practice, patient, and/or health-care personnel. The effect should be relevant to the purpose of the quality improvement project. Lessons learned should include three to four points for a general audience discussing how the quality improvement efforts can be used in other contexts or how the implemented project changed the practice or issues at hand.

Research Methods Papers

Word Limit: Research methods papers should be no longer than 7000 words including abstract and reference list.

Abstract: Provide a structured abstract of no more than 150 words outlining the need for new method, purpose, overview of method, conclusions, and contribution to nursing research/methodology.

Research methods papers should describe new methods developed during the design and conduct of research or application of research/philosophical/theoretical ideas from other disciplines to inform nursing research and practice. The papers should be framed under the headings: Abstract, Background and Purpose, Overview of the Research Method, Application to an Exemplar Study (if the method was developed during a research project), Contribution to Nursing Research/Methodology, and Conclusions. These headings are flexible and can be tailored to the needs of the paper.

Under Background and Purpose, provide details existing methods and how this new method adds to the existing literature. Under overview of the method, provide detailed information about the type of research method, how it was developed and used, its potential benefits, and challenges to application. Contribution to Nursing Research/Methodology should include three to four points for a nurse researchers discussing how the new proposed method/s can inform nursing research/methodology. In this section, also note the relevance of the proposed methods to the year’s theme.

Reporting guidelines

The relevant EQUATOR Network reporting guidelines should be followed depending on the type of article.

  • CONSORT checklist for reports of randomized trials and cluster randomized trials
  • TREND checklist for non-randomized controlled trials
  • STROBE checklist for observational research
  • SQUIRE checklist for quality improvement
  • TRIPOD checklist for prediction model development and/or validation
  • CHEERS guidelines for economic evaluations
  • SPIRIT checklist for study protocols
  • AGREE checklist for clinical practice guidelines
    • PRISMA for systematic reviews
    • PRISMA-ScR for scoping reviews

We no longer recommend using COREQ guidelines for reporting qualitative studies because these guidelines are often mistreated as indicators of quality of qualitative studies without considering the diversity in design and methods. Additional two major issues with the COREQ guidelines include: a) offering One-size-fits-all approach for diverse qualitative research designs and b) lack of credibility and validity in the development process. Therefore, we encourage authors to use a Values-Based Approach to reporting qualitative studies. The following paper can be used as a guide on how to effectively report qualitative studies.

Title Page

To ensure fair and anonymous peer review, your manuscript must be fully anonymized. Please ensure any identifying information is removed from the main manuscript document and included on the Title Page instead. Do not include any author names in the manuscript file name and remove names from headers and footers. This version of the manuscript will be sent to the peer reviewers. The Title Page will not be sent to peer reviewers. See the Sage Journal Author Gateway for detailed guidance on making an anonymous submission.

The Title Page should include:

  • Article title (see section “Formatting your manuscript“ for article title requirements)
  • The full list of authors including names and affiliations of each
    • The listed affiliation should be the institution where the research was conducted. If an author has moved to a new institution since completing the research, the new affiliation can be included in a note at the end of the manuscript – please indicate this on the title page.
    • All persons eligible for authorship must be included at the time of submission (please see the authorship section for more information).
  • Contact information for the corresponding author (name, institutional address, phone, email) and the highest earned credentials.
  • If the manuscript is accepted for publication, the authors will be requested to provide a photo for publication along with a biography (maximum 50 words) that includes choice of personal pronouns. 
  • Acknowledgments and disclosure section
  • Declaration of conflicting interest
  • Funding statement
  • Ethical approval and informed consent statements
  • Data accessibility statement

Clinical trial registration

The journal conforms to the ICMJE requirement that clinical trials are registered in a WHO-approved public trials registry at or before the time of first participant enrollment as a condition of consideration for publication. The trial registry name and URL, and registration number must be included at the end of the abstract.

If your research involves animals, you will be asked to confirm that you have carefully read and adhered to the ARRIVE guidelines.

Formatting your manuscript

Accepted file types

The preferred format for your manuscript is Word. You do not need to follow a template, but please ensure your heading levels are clear, and the sections clearly defined.

Your article title, keywords, and abstract all contribute to its position in search engine results, directly affecting the number of people who see your work. For details of what you can do to influence this, visit How to help readers find your article online.

Title

Your manuscript’s title should be concise, descriptive, unambiguous, accurate, and reflect the precise contents of the manuscript. A descriptive title that includes the topic of the manuscript makes an article more findable in the major indexing services. The methodology used in the study must also be included in the article title.

Abstract

For non-research manuscripts, please include an unstructured abstract of 150-200 words. Research manuscripts require a structured abstract between 150-200 words. The abstract must be included between the title and main body of your manuscript that concisely states the purpose of the research, major findings, and conclusions.

If your research includes clinical trials, the trial registry name and URL, and registration number must be included at the end of the abstract. Submissions that do not meet this requirement will not be considered.

Tweetable Abstract (Optional): Authors can also provide a 30-40 word tweetable abstract for social media promotions.

Keywords

Please include a minimum of 5 keywords, listed after the abstract. Keywords should be as specific as possible to the research topic.

Artwork, figures, and other graphics

For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures, and graphs in electronic format, please read Sage’s artwork guidelines.

Figures supplied in color will appear in color online.

Please ensure that you have obtained any necessary permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures, or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please see the Frequently Asked Questions page on the Sage Journal Author Gateway.

Author contributions 

As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review and publication process, Creative Nursing has adopted CRediT (Contributor Role Taxonomy). CRediT is a high-level taxonomy, including 14 roles, which is used to describe each other's individual contribution to the work.  

You will be asked to list the contribution of each author as part of the submission process. Please include the Author Contributions heading within your submission after the Acknowledgements section. The information you give on submission will then show under the Author Contributions heading later at the proofing stage. For more informal, please see our CRediT Gateway page. 

Corresponding authors must specify the contributions of each co-author using the CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) framework. The roles include:  

- Conceptualization  
- Data curation  
- Formal analysis  
- Funding acquisition  
- Investigation  
- Methodology  
- Project administration  
- Resources  
- Software  
- Supervision  
- Validation  
- Visualization  
- Writing – original draft  
- Writing – review and editing  

It is important to note that not every CRediT role will be relevant to each manuscript, and individual authors may fulfill multiple roles. For further information on CRediT we encourage you to explore https://credit.niso.org

Statements and declarations

To ensure proper anonymization, please include a section with the heading ‘Statements and Declarations’ on your title page, after the Acknowledgements section including each of the sub-headings listed below. If a declaration is not applicable to your submission, you must still include the heading and state ‘Not applicable’ underneath. Please note that you may be asked to justify why a declaration was not applicable to your submission by the Editorial Office. This information will be added to the end of your published paper.

Ethical considerations

Please include your ethics approval statements under this heading, even if you have already included ethics approval information in your methods section. If ethical approval was not required, you need to explicitly state this. You can find information on what to say in your ethical statements as well as example statements on our Publication ethics and research integrity policies page.

All papers reporting studies involving human participants, human data or human tissue must state that the relevant Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board approved the study, or waived the requirement for approval, providing the full name and institution of the review committee in addition to the approval number. If applicable, please also include this information in the Methods section of your manuscript.

Please include any participant consent information under this heading and state whether informed consent to participate was written or verbal. If the requirement for informed consent to participate has been waived by the relevant Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board (i.e. where it has been deemed that consent would be impossible or impracticable to obtain), please state this. If this is not applicable to your manuscript, please state ‘Not applicable’ in this section. More information and example statements can be found on our Publication ethics and research integrity policies page.

Submissions containing any data from an individual person (including individual details, images or videos) must include a statement confirming that informed consent for publication was provided by the participant(s) or a legally authorized representative. Non-essential identifying details should be omitted. Please do not submit the participant’s actual written informed consent with your article, as this in itself breaches the patient’s confidentiality. The Journal requests that you confirm to us, in writing, that you have obtained written informed consent to publish but the written consent itself should be held by the authors/investigators themselves, for example in a patient’s hospital record. The confirmatory letter may be uploaded with your submission as a separate file in addition to the statement confirming that consent to publish was obtained within the manuscript text. If this is not applicable to your manuscript, please state ‘Not applicable’ in this section.

Declaration of conflicting interest

The journal requires a declaration of conflicting interests from all authors so that a statement can be included in your article. For guidance on conflict of interest statements, see our policy on conflicting interest declarations and the ICMJE recommendations.

If no conflict exists, your statement should read: ‘The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article’.

Funding statement

All articles need to include a funding statement, under a separate heading, even if you did not receive funding. You’ll find guidance and examples on our Funding page.

Data availability

The Journal is committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research, and has the following research data sharing policy. For more information, including FAQs please visit the Sage Research Data policy pages.

Subject to appropriate ethical and legal considerations, authors are encouraged to:

  • Share your research data in a relevant public data repository
  • Include a data availability statement linking to your data. If it is not possible to share your data, use the statement to confirm why it cannot be shared.
  • Cite this data in your research

Reference style and citations

The journal follows the APA reference style. View the APA guidelines to ensure your manuscript conforms.

Every in-text citation must have a corresponding citation in the reference list and vice versa. Corresponding citations must have identical spelling and year.

Authors should update any references to preprints when a peer reviewed version is made available, to cite the published research. Citations to preprints are otherwise discouraged.

Predatory Publications: Authors should practice caution when citing sources and including studies in reviews. During editorial and peer review, citations from possibly predatory journals will be questioned, which may result in substantial revisions of the manuscript.

Acknowledgments

If you are including an Acknowledgements section, this will be published at the end of your article. The Acknowledgments section should include all contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship. Per ICMJE recommendations, it is best practice to obtain consent from non-author contributors who you are acknowledging in your manuscript.

Writing assistance and third party submissions: if you have received any writing or editing assistance from a third-party, for example a specialist communications company, this must be clearly stated in the Acknowledgements section and in the covering letter. Please see the Sage Author Gateway for what information to include in your Acknowledgements section. If your submission is being made on your behalf by someone who is not listed as an author, for example the third-party who provided writing/editing assistance, you must state this in the Acknowledgements and also in your covering letter. Please note that the journal editor reserves the right to not consider submissions made by a third party rather than by the author/s themselves.

Supplemental material

This Journal can host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc.) alongside the full text of the article. Your supplemental material must be one of our accepted file types. For that list and more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplemental files.

English language editing services

Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting to fit the journal’s specifications should consider using Sage Author Services. Visit Sage Author Services for further information.

As part of the submission process you will need to confirm that this is your original work, that you have the rights in the work, that this is for first publication in this Journal, that it is not being considered for/has not already been published elsewhere, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you.

Please see our guidelines on prior publication and note that the journal may accept submissions of manuscripts that have been posted on preprint servers.

Preprints

The journal will consider submissions of manuscripts that have been posted on preprint servers.

Please enter the preprint DOI in the designated field when submitting your manuscript. We advise that you inform the Journal Editorial office about your posted preprint at submission.

Note that you should not post an updated version of your manuscript on a preprint server while it is being peer reviewed.

Learn more about our preprint policy.

Submission site

Submit your manuscript online via Sage Track.

IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in Sage Track before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the journal in the past year it is likely that you will have had an account created. For further guidance on submitting your manuscript online please visit ScholarOne Online Help.

Manuscripts should only be submitted with the consent of all contributing authors. The individual responsible for submitting the manuscript should carefully check that all those whose work contributed to the manuscript are listed as authors.

Ensure you upload all relevant manuscript files, including any additional supplemental files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).

Authorship

Please view our authorship policies, which includes information on criteria for authorship, who should be the corresponding author and more.

We welcome submissions from independent scholars and unaffiliated researchers. If you do not have an institutional affiliation, please indicate “independent scholar” in your author details and provide a preferred email address for correspondence.

Please note that AI chatbots, for example ChatGPT, should not be listed as authors. For more information see the policy on Use of ChatGPT and generative AI tools.

As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review and publication process, Creative Nursing has adopted CRediT (Contributor Role Taxonomy). CRediT is a high-level taxonomy, including 14 roles, which is used to describe each other's individual contribution to the work. 

You will be asked to list the contribution of each author as part of the submission process. Please include the Author Contributions heading within your submission after the Acknowledgements section. The information you give on submission will then show under the Author Contributions heading later at the proofing stage. For more informal, please see our CRediT Gateway page.

Files

  • Cover letter. To help the Editor in their preliminary evaluation, please indicate why you think the manuscript suitable for publication. If the manuscript has been drawn from a previously published study, explain how the submitted manuscript is different from the previously published manuscript.
  • Title Page with all required identifying information as laid out in Preparing your manuscript for submission (above). This will not be sent to the peer reviewers.
  • Your manuscript, properly formatted and anonymized according to all stipulations above, and within the scope of the journal. Any information that compromises the anonymity of the author(s) should be removed or anonymized and included on the Title Page instead. See above for more information on anonymization. This version will be sent to the peer reviewers.
  • Figures and images.
  • Supplemental material. This journal can host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images, etc) alongside the full-text of the article. Your supplemental material must be one of our accepted file types. For that list and more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplemental files.

Other information required for submission

  • We encourage all authors and co-authors ensure their ORCID IDs are linked to their accounts in the submission system prior to article acceptance, as this is the only way to have their ORCID ID present on the published article. ORCID IDs cannot be added to manuscripts after acceptance/publication.
    • Please note that each co-author must log in to the journal submission system to add their own ORCID ID to their account. To add an ORCID ID, edit your account, click the link when prompted, and sign into your ORCID account to validate your ID. You will then be redirected back to the submission system and your ORCID ID will become part of your accepted publication’s metadata.
    • Please create an ORCID ID if you do not already have one or visit our ORCID homepage to learn more.
  • Complete list of authors, with their institutional affiliations.
    • The author information you enter at submission must exactly match what is included on your manuscript and/or title page, including full names, academic affiliations, and corresponding author contact details.
    • The listed affiliation should be the institution where the research was conducted. If an author has moved to a new institution since completing the research, the new affiliation can be included in a note at the end of the manuscript.
    • All listed authors must meet the criteria for authorship (above).
    • All persons eligible for authorship must be included at the time of submission.
    • All authors must have given consent for the manuscript to be submitted in its current form.
  • Keywords: During submission, you may be asked to select or enter keywords for your manuscript. These keywords are used to match appropriate reviewers to your manuscript.
  • The number of figures, tables, and words in your manuscript.
  • Funder information: Name, grant/award number.
  • You may be required to enter your declaration of conflicting interest as part of the submission process, in addition to listing it on your manuscript and/or title page. Please have it on hand.
  • If you have posted your manuscript to a preprint server, you will be asked to supply the DOI (this does not prohibit submission, but no changes should be made to the preprint version while your manuscript is under evaluation in this journal). Please see our guidelines on prior publication. If the article is accepted for publication, the author may re-use their work according to the journal's author archiving policy. If your manuscript is accepted, you must include a link in your preprint to the final version of your published article.

The following summary describes the peer review process for this journal:
Identity transparency: Double-anonymized
Reviewer interacts with: Editor
Review information published: None

Your manuscript will undergo an initial evaluation. If it does not conform to the requirements laid out in these guidelines, it will be returned to you for amendments prior to peer review. Manuscripts may be desk rejected without peer review at this point if they are out of scope for the journal or otherwise unsuitable.

After passing the initial evaluation, your manuscript will then be peer reviewed. You can log in at any time to check the status of your manuscript. We will notify you when a decision has been reached.

The journal operates a primarily double-anonymized peer review process in which the identities of authors and reviewers are concealed from one another to promote impartial evaluation. Typically, two independent reviewers are invited to assess each manuscript. In some cases, to ensure a timely and thorough evaluation, one of the reviews may be conducted by an Editor or member of the Editorial Board, who may or may not have access to author information depending on their role in the review process. All manuscripts are evaluated according to the same standards of rigor, fairness, and confidentiality, regardless of reviewer type or level of anonymization.

The following manuscript types may not require two independent reviews to be accepted: Editorials.

To ensure the integrity of the peer review process we assign reviewers and cannot accept author recommendations.

All manuscripts are reviewed as rapidly as possible, while maintaining rigor. Reviewers make comments to the author and recommendations to the Editor who then makes the final decision on all manuscripts, including those appearing in a special issue or special collection. The Editor or members of the Editorial Board may occasionally submit their own manuscripts for possible publication in the Journal. In these cases, the peer review process will be managed by alternative members of the Board and the submitting Editor/Board member will have no involvement in the decision-making process.

Read Sage's complete peer review policy.

Plagiarism

The journal and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. Please read Sage's complete policy on plagiarism and the actions we may take.

Contributor’s Publishing Agreement

Before publication, we require the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. Sage’s Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement is an exclusive license agreement which means that the author retains copyright in the work but grants Sage the sole and exclusive right and license to publish for the full legal term of copyright. Exceptions may exist where an assignment of copyright is required or preferred by a proprietor other than Sage. In this case copyright in the work will be assigned from the author to the society. For more information please visit the Sage Journal Author Gateway.

Preprints

If your manuscript was posted on a preprint server prior to acceptance, you must include a link in your preprint to the final published version of your published article.

Production

Your Sage Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will be made available to the corresponding author via our editing portal, Sage Edit, or by email, and should be returned promptly to avoid delaying publication. Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence, and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate. This is the final opportunity to make changes to your manuscript. Further corrections will not be possible after publication. Changes to the author list are not permitted at this stage.

Publication

OnlineFirst publication: This enables us to publish final articles online immediately, without waiting for assignment to a future issue of the Journal. This usually significantly reduces publication lead time. Visit the Sage Journals help page for more details, including how to cite OnlineFirst articles.

Access to your published article: We provide you with online access to your published article. The online access link is provided to the corresponding author for sharing with their co-authors.

Promoting your article

Publication is not the end of the process. Between us, we can ensure that your article is found, read, downloaded and cited as widely as possible. Many of the most effective tactics are those you can do quickly and easily to your network of contacts and peers. Visit the Promote Your Article page on the Sage Journal Author Gateway for numerous resources to help you promote your work.

The Sage Journal Author Gateway has some general advice on how to get published, plus links to further resources. Sage Author Services also offers authors a variety of ways to improve and enhance your article including English language editing, plagiarism detection, and video abstract and infographic preparation.

If you have any questions about publishing with Sage, please visit the Sage Journals Solutions Portal.

You can view our complaints and appeals procedure.

Contact us

You can direct any questions to the journal’s editorial office:

Ahtisham Younas
Editor
Email: ay6133@mun.ca
Telephone number: +17099865033