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.

Please read the guidelines below then submit your manuscript here.

Access: Open Access
APC: See article processing charge information below
Accepts preprints? Yes
Identity transparency: Double anonymized

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

Nordic Journal of Nursing Research is an open access, peer-reviewed journal since 2023. All accepted articles are made freely available online immediately upon publication, are published under a Creative Commons license, and hosted online in perpetuity. Articles published in the journal before 2023 are still protected by their exclusive licences where applicable. Please note that all articles published in the journal from 1999 to 2022 are now free to access. Articles published in the journal before 1999 are not free to access.

If, after peer review, your manuscript is accepted for publication, a one-time article processing charge (APC) is payable from January 2025. In 2025, the APC for this journal is 1050 USD.

The article processing charge (APC) is $2100, currently discounted to a rate of $1050.

For general information on open access at Sage please visit the Open Access page.

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.

Article types

Nordic Journal of Nursing Research publishes primary research, secondary qualitative and/or quantitative analyses, literature reviews, contemporary issues, comments on published papers and discussion papers. NJNR additionally publish master- and doctoral/PhD papers. Full research papers can be a maximum of 7000 words in length (abstract, tables, figures and references included). Shorter papers are encouraged. Guest editorials commenting on current or recent journal content are also welcomed. We do not publish, single case studies, study protocols, instrument development or validation papers. We also do not publish original research where 3 years or more have passed since time for data collection. Searches for submitted literature reviews should not be older than six months. Contact [email protected] for study designs with a long follow up i.e. implementation studies and longitudinal study designs. Please note that study design should be included in the title. 

Research papers (maximum 7000 words)

Primary research should be written in accordance with IMRaD. All submissions should adhere to relevant reporting guidelines which are provided by the EQUATOR network. The correct reporting guidelines need to be enclosed as a supplementary file at submission to ensure that all essential elements have been reported. State abbreviation of reporting guidelines at end of method in abstract and written in full in the first paragraph of the method section of the paper. Relevant reference should be included. All primary research needs to address ethical considerations and inform about when data was collected.

Systematic reviews (maximum 7000 words)

All types of systematic review designs are welcomed. The editorial team encourages prospective registration, and where a study has been registered, please give the registration number within the end of the abstract and in the body of the paper’s method section. Systematic reviews also need to follow the structure of established guidelines for reporting. Correct reporting guidelines need to be enclosed as supplementary file at submission as to ensure that essential elements have been reported. State abbreviation of reporting guidelines at end of method in abstract and written in full in the first paragraph of the method section of the paper. Relevant reference should be included. Please note that maximum 6 months should have passed since the literature searches were finalized. Submissions with older searches than above will not be considered.

Contemporary issues (maximum 2000 words, summary 100 words, 3- 5 keywords, and maximum 10 references)

Papers that presents contemporary issues of general interest for nursing and midwifery and stimulate a scholarly debate are welcomed. The submission need to account for a clearly stated issue as well as resolvent suggestions to remedy the issue. For tone and style, it is recommended to explore already published contemporary issues. The issues must be current and, although it can be of national relevance it must contain international implications and be of importance for an international audience.

Comments (maximum 1000 words and 8 reference)

NJNR likes to encourage an open debate in relation to its published papers. Comments from the readers that stimulates academic debate and discussion on a recent content in the journal are welcomed.

Discussion papers (maximum 2500 words, summary 100 words, 3- 5 keywords, and maximum 15 references)

We are also interested in publishing discussion papers of a debating or discursive nature of relevance for nursing and midwifery. The paper needs to reflect critical analysis and engagement with a substantive body of research or other scholarship in relation to a clearly articulated thesis. For tone and style, it is recommended to explore already published contemporary issues. The issues must be current and, although it can be of national relevance it must contain international implications and be of importance for an international audience.

Master or Doctorate Studies Research (maximum 5000 words)

NJNR supports the publication of primary research conducted by master’s or PhD-students. See submission guidelines for the relevant type of paper. Please note that the word count for research papers (7000 words) is not applicable here as manuscripts should not exceed 5000 words. It is important for this type of work to, at submission, acknowledge that the manuscript is a master’s or doctorate studies research despite its design.

Guest Editorials (maximum 1000 words and 8 references)

Authors who have ideas for editorials which address issues of substantive concern to the nursing or midwifery discipline, and particularly those of a controversial nature or linked directly to current/forthcoming content in the journal are welcome to contact the Editorial office at [email protected]

Authors whose first language is not English are requested to have their manuscripts checked carefully for linguistic correctness before submission.

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.

Reporting guidelines

Your manuscript must follow the relevant EQUATOR Network reporting guidelines, depending on the type of study. The EQUATOR wizard can help identify the appropriate guideline. You will need to upload the appropriate checklist with your submission.

Other resources can be found at NLM’s Research Reporting Guidelines and Initiatives.

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.

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.

Please note all submissions should be accompanied by a cover letter that includes the below information:

• An explanation of why your manuscript should be published in Nordic Journal of Nursing Research

• A declaration of any potential competing interests

• Confirmation that all authors have approved the manuscript for submission

• Confirmation that the content of the manuscript has not been published, or submitted for publication elsewhere

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 an abstract of 100-150 words between the title and main body of your manuscript that concisely states, despite the lack of headings: Background, aim/objective, method, result/findings, conclusions and clinical implications. 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.

Keywords

Please include a minimum of 5 keywords, listed after the abstract. Keywords should be as specific as possible to the research topic. Please do not use key words that are already presented in the title.

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.

Tables, boxes and figures

Make sure to enclose the above as separate files and clearly highlight their place in the manuscript by stating --- Insert X about here ----

Wordcount

Please note that word count includes abstract, tables, figures and references. Abstracts or summaries should be between 100-150 words including 4 to 6 key words. Background, aim, method, findings and conclusion and implications of the research should be included in the abstract but not as sub-titles.

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.

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

Data sharing is not applicable to this journal as the subject matter covered by the aims & scope does not necessitate the need for the use of empirical data, software, or code. As such, no datasets, software or code may be generated or analyzed by the articles published in the journal.


Reference style and citations

The journal follows the Sage Vancouver reference style. View the Sage Vancouver 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.

EndNote

If you use EndNote to manage references, you can download the Sage Vancouver EndNote output file

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.

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.

Please note that authors are expected to carefully consider the list and order of authors before submission and provide the definitive list of authors at the time of submission. Any addition, deletion or rearrangement of author names in the authorship list should be made only before the manuscript has been accepted and only if approved by the journal Editor. To request such a change, the Editor will require from the corresponding author: (a) the reason for the change in author list and (b) written confirmation (e-mail, letter) from all authors that they agree with the change. In the case of addition or removal of authors, this includes confirmation from the author being added or removed.

Files

  • 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.
  • 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

  • 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.
  • 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 adheres to a rigorous double-anonymized reviewing policy in which the identity of both the reviewer and author are always concealed from both parties. Two independent reviews are required for a manuscript to reach a Revise or Accept decision.

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.

As a COPE member we engage with multiple forms of post-publication discussion in line with wider guidance from Sage: Commentaries, Critiques and Responses.

You can view our complaints and appeals policy here.

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.

After acceptance you will receive instructions via email inviting you to complete the Open Access process. This will include signing the appropriate Creative Commons license and, where applicable, paying the Article Processing Charge (APC) or assigning a bill payer. Once the APC has been processed, your article will be prepared for publication and can appear online within an average of 30 days. Please note that, where an APC is applicable, production work cannot be completed on your manuscript until payment has been received.

Contributor’s Publishing Agreement

Before publication we require the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. The journal publishes manuscripts under Creative Commons licenses. The standard license for the journal is Creative Commons by Attribution Non-Commercial (CC BY-NC), which allows others to re-use the work without permission as long as the work is properly referenced and the use is non-commercial. For more information, you are advised to visit Sage's OA licenses page. Alternative license arrangements are available at the author’s request (e.g. to meet particular funder mandates).

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

One of the many benefits of publishing your research in an open access journal is the speed to publication. With no page count constraints, your article will be published online in a fully citable form with a DOI number as soon as it has completed the production process. At this time it will be completely free to view and download for all.

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.

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:

Gunilla Borglin and Katarina Sjögren Forss
(NJNR@sagepub.com)