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.

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.

The LaTeX files are also accepted. A LaTeX template is available on the Sage Journal Author Gateway.

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.

Abstract

Please include a structured abstract of 150 words 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.

For clinical trials, the trial registry name and URL, and registration number must be included at the end of the abstract.

Language

Please write your text in good English (American or British usage is accepted, but not a mixture of these). Use decimal points (not decimal commas); use a comma for thousands (1,000 and above).

Use of Word-processing Software

It is important that the file be saved in the original format of the word processor used. The text should be in single-column format. Keep the layout of the text as simple as possible. Most formatting codes will be removed and replaced on processing the article. In particular, do not use the word processor's options to justify text or to hyphenate words. However, feel free to use bold face, italics, subscripts, and superscripts. Do not embed "graphically designed" equations or tables, but prepare these using the word processor's facility. When preparing tables, if you are using a table grid, use only one grid for each individual table and not a grid for each row. If no grid is used, use tabs, not spaces, to align columns. The electronic text should be prepared in a way very similar to that of conventional manuscripts (see also Sage’s Manuscript Submission Guidelines). Do not import the figures into the text file but, instead, indicate their approximate locations directly in the electronic text and on the manuscript. See also the section on Electronic illustrations. To avoid unnecessary errors you are strongly advised to use the "spell-check" and "grammar-check" functions of your word processor.

Keywords

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

Footnotes

Footnotes are discouraged. Do not include footnotes in the Reference list.

Table footnotes

Indicate each footnote in a table with a superscript lowercase letter.

Tables

Number tables consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text. Place footnotes to tables below the table body and indicate them with superscript lowercase letters. Avoid vertical rules. Be sparing in the use of tables and ensure that the data presented in tables do not duplicate results described elsewhere in the article.

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.

Electronic Artwork

Make sure you use uniform lettering and sizing of your original artwork.

Save text in illustrations as "graphics" or enclose the font.

Only use the following fonts in your illustrations: Arial, Courier, Helvetica, Times, Symbol.

Number the illustrations according to their sequence in the text.

Use a logical naming convention for your artwork files.

Provide captions to illustrations separately.

Produce images near to the desired size of the published version.

Submit each figure as a separate file. For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format, please visit the Artwork Guidelines section on Sage’s manuscript submission guidelines page. Figures supplied in color will appear in color on-line regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in color in the printed version. For specifically requested color reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Sage after receipt of your accepted article from the Production Editor.

Please do not:

Supply embedded graphics in your word processor (spreadsheet, presentation) document.

Supply files that are optimized for screen use (like GIF, BMP, PICT, WPG); the resolution is too low.

Supply files that are too low in resolution.

Submit graphics that are disproportionately large for the content.

Mark the appropriate position of a figure in the article

Color Artwork

Please make sure that artwork files are in an acceptable format (TIFF, EPS or MS Office files) and with the correct resolution. If, together with your accepted article, you submit usable color figures then Sage will ensure, at no additional charge, that these figures will appear in color on the journal web site.

Image Manipulation

While it is accepted that authors sometimes need to manipulate images for clarity, manipulation for purposes of deception or fraud will be seen as scientific ethical abuse and will be dealt with accordingly. For graphical images, this journal is applying the following policy: no specific feature within an image may be enhanced, obscured, moved, removed, or introduced. Adjustments of brightness, contrast, or color balance are acceptable if and as long as they do not obscure or eliminate any information present in the original. Non-linear adjustments (e.g. changes to gamma settings) must be disclosed in the figure legend.

Figure Captions

Ensure that each illustration has a caption. Supply captions separately, not attached to the figure. A caption should comprise a brief title (not on the figure itself) and a description of the illustration. Keep text in the illustrations themselves to a minimum but explain all symbols and abbreviations used.

Text Graphics

Present incidental graphics not suitable for mention as figures, plates or schemes at the end of the article and number them "Graphic 1", etc. Their precise position in the text can then be indicated. See further under Electronic Artwork. If you are working with LaTeX and have such features embedded in the text, these can be left, but such embedding should not be done specifically for publishing purposes. Further, high-resolution graphics files must be provided separately.

Submission Checklist

It is our hope that this list will be useful during the final checking of an article prior to sending it to the journal's Managing Editor for review.

Ensure that the following items are present:

One Author designated as corresponding author

E-mail address

Full postal address

Telephone and fax numbers

All necessary files have been uploaded

Keywords

All figure captions

All tables (including title, description, footnotes) Further considerations

Manuscript has been "spell-checked" and "grammar-checked"

References are in the correct format for this journal

All references mentioned in the Reference list are cited in the text, and vice versa

Permission has been obtained for use of copyrighted material from other sources (including the web)

Color figures are clearly marked as being intended for color reproduction on the web (free of charge).

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.

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
• 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
• Acknowledgments section
• Declaration of conflicting interest
• Funding statement
• Ethical approval and informed consent statements
• Data availability statement
• Any other identifying information related to the authors and/or their institutions, funders, approval committees, etc, that might compromise anonymity.

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.

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 [and Author Contributions section if applicable] 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.

Consent to participate

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.

Consent for publication

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.

Reference style and citations

The journal follows the AMA Manual of Style. View the AMA Manual of Style 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.

Journal Abbreviations Source Journal names should be abbreviated according to Index Medicus journal abbreviations: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/journals

List of serial title word abbreviations: http://www.issn.org/2-22661-LTWA-online.php

CAS (Chemical Abstracts Service): http://www.cas.org/content/references/corejournals

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.

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.

• ORCID ID of the submitting author.
  • It is strongly encouraged that all 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 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.