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

Figures submitted in color will be published in color in the online version of the journal at no cost. If you wish to have color figures in the printed version, the following fees apply: $800 for the first color figure and $200 for each color figure thereafter.

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.

Open access fees do not cover page or color charges and are charged separately.

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

View our Special Collections currently accepting submissions.

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

Manuscripts should be typed double-spaced throughout with one (1) inch (2.5 cm) margins all around.
Microsoft Word is the preferred software program. Manuscripts written in 12-point Arial or Times New Roman fonts are preferred and more reliably convert to PDF format during electronic submission. (Do not submit your manuscript in PDF format.)
American rather than British spelling should be used throughout the manuscript, including within figures.

Original articles should not exceed 5000 words, inclusive of abstract, text, tables, figure legends, and up to 40 references. The combined total of figures and tables should not exceed 10.

Review articles should not exceed 6500 words, inclusive of abstract, text, tables, figure legends, and up to 80 references. The editor is willing to discuss more specific guidelines about the subject matter and content of review articles via email.

New Technology and Expert Technique articles should not exceed 2500 words, inclusive of abstract, text, tables, figure legends, and up to 10 references. The number of tables should not exceed 3, the number of figures should not exceed 6 if tables are included, 8 if there are no tables. Manuscripts including information or imagery pertaining to a specific patient should be accompanied by an Author’s Statement confirming that consent for publication was granted by each subject patient or their respective parent(s) or guardian.

“How to do it” articles should not exceed 1200 words, inclusive of abstract, text, tables, figure legends, and up to 8 references. These reports should not include tables; if the author deems a table essential, he or she should provide justification for the table in the cover letter. A “How to do it” article should be a description of a useful technique and contain descriptive, illustrative material describing the innovation. Manuscripts including information or imagery pertaining to a specific patient should be accompanied by an Author’s Statement confirming that consent for publication was granted by each subject patient or their respective parent(s) or guardian.

Images of congenital heart disease articles may include up to 3 figures and should not exceed 550 words. No abstract or section headings should be included. Manuscripts including information or imagery pertaining to a specific patient should be accompanied by an Author’s Statement confirming that consent for publication was granted by each subject patient or their respective parent(s) or guardian.

Case Reports should not exceed 1200 words, inclusive of abstract, text, tables, figure legends, and up to 8 references. These reports should not include tables; if the author deems a table essential, he or she should provide justification for the table in the cover letter. Case Reports must include an Author’s Statement confirming that permission was granted by the subject patient or their respective parent(s) or guardian to publish the case report.

Historical Review should not exceed 2500 words, inclusive of abstract, text, tables, figure legends, and references.

End Notes are brief essays that may convey the author's insights or opinion on a subject of current interest to readers of WJPCHS. They should not exceed 1200 words, inclusive of text, tables, figure legends, and up to 6 references, and one figure.

Letters to the Editor and Brief Commentaries should not exceed 500 words. Do not include tables and subtract 100 words for each illustration. Letters may be peer reviewed to ensure accuracy.

Invited Commentary should not exceed 1200 words, inclusive of text, tables, figure legends, and up to 8 references.

Guest Editorials should not exceed 2500 words, inclusive of text, tables, figure legends, and references.

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.

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.

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.

Files

• Cover letter. To help the Editor in their preliminary evaluation, please indicate why you think the manuscript suitable for publication.
• Your manuscript, properly formatted according to all stipulations above, and within the scope of the journal.
• The main text of the manuscript should be organized as follows: Introduction, Material (or Patients) and Methods, Results, Comment, and all disclosures. 

  Avoid excessive use of abbreviations. Consult the American Medical Association Manual of Style, 11th edition, for recommended abbreviations. Define abbreviations at first appearance in the text. If 8 or more abbreviations or acronyms are used, provide a separate table of abbreviations and acronyms on a separate page between the Abstract and Text pages of the Main Document. 

  Measurements and weights should be given in standard metric units. 

  Statistical Nomenclature and Data Analysis. Methodology for all statistical analysis should be described, and references should be cited. Use of standard tests (chi-square test, student’s T-test, etc.) do not require citation of references. Use of proprietary software for statistical analysis should be documented.

  Footnotes. Type footnotes at the bottom of the manuscript page on which they are cited. Suppliers. Credit suppliers of drugs, equipment, and other commercial material mentioned in the article within parentheses, providing company name, city and state or city and country.

  Writing Assistance. Individuals who provided writing assistance, eg, from a specialist communications company, do not qualify as authors and so should be included in the Acknowledgements section. Authors must disclose any writing assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input – and identify the entity that paid for this assistance. It is not necessary to disclose use of language polishing services.

  Disclosures and Freedom of Investigation. A disclosure statement is required for all studies, regardless of category of article, which specifies any financial, property, or intellectual aid from a commercial source. The disclosure statement must state the source(s) of all funds used to support the study or to perform the evaluation and whether or not property or tested technology was purchased, borrowed, or donated to the study. In addition, the authors must state that they had full control of the design of the study, methods used, outcome parameters, analysis of data, and production of the written report. These disclosures are mandatory for all manuscripts and conflicts of interest statements are published in the articles. The Contributor Agreement includes definitions of financial support and freedom of investigation. The existence of undisclosed authors must be declared on the Contributor Agreement, and their identity provided to the editorial office.

  Author’s Statement. All manuscripts which include information or imagery pertaining to a specific patient should be accompanied by an Author’s Statement confirming that consent for publication was granted by each subject patient or their respective parent(s) or guardian.

  Humane Animal Care. When animals are used as subjects, institutional approval of the protocol is necessary and authors should include a statement in “Methods” indicating that investigators complied with the 1996 “Guide for the Care and use of Laboratory Animals” (See http://www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/labrats/contents.html), recommended by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, or with equivalent guidelines administered by the author’s governmental regulatory body. When no formal ethics review process is available, authors must state that humane care was provided in animal experiments, in accordance with either of the above.

• Figures and images.
• All figures must be numbered consecutively in the order in which they appear in the text – they will appear in the published article in the order they are numbered.
• Figure resolution is 300dpi. More information on figure/image preparation can be found here.

• Improperly formatted figures and illustrations (including those bearing copyright marks without accompanying permissions to reproduce) will be returned to authors and will slow down production of accepted manuscripts. This includes color graphs and images that do not convert clearly to grayscale. 

  Submit figures online as individual files (do Not embed them within the text file), which may contain one or more panels of one figure. For each figure file, use the figure number (e.g., Figure 1A) as the filename. The system accepts image files formatted in TIF and EPS. PowerPoint (.ppt) files are also accepted, but for line drawings only. AMA Manual of Style 11th edition recommends against the use of pie charts. Images should be created in grayscale or CMYK color. Please be sure to add the figure number and legend to the Caption/Legend field on the submission form.

  Symbols, letters, numbers, and contrasting fills must be distinct and clearly legible when the illustration is reduced in size. Use only standard fonts; Helvetica or Arial (sans serif fonts) are best. Maintain consistently sized lettering throughout your submission; minimum 12 pts. is best. Most figures will be reproduced at a width of one column (8.25 cm; 3-1/4 inches). Please make sure all labels within figures are large enough to be easily read when the figure is reduced for printing. Do not include titles or captions within figures or illustrations.

  Black, white, and widely crosshatched bars are preferable; do not use stippling, gray fill, or thin lines. Some commercial software generates graphs and plots using multiple colors. It is preferable to submit graphs prepared in black and white to ensure that lines and data points will be easily distinguished in the print version of your article. It is the author’s responsibility to ensure all files are legible in black and white. If files are formatted in such a way that require color printing to be legible, the authors will be responsible for Color Figure charges.

  All diagnostic images and related materials must be devoid of any patient identification information.

• 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.

• 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.

The following summary describes the peer review process for this journal:
Identity transparency: Single-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 conventional single-anonymized reviewing policy in which the reviewer’s name is always concealed from the submitting author.

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.

The journal has an Editorial Board who serve the journal as external peer reviewers. Each member of the Editorial Board are active researchers in the field and selected based on strict criteria, ensuring they possess the necessary expertise and experience. The Editor(s) may use one Editorial Board Member as a reviewer for each manuscript, and will then reach beyond this pool to include additional reviewers to meet the required number before a decision can be made. This ensures a comprehensive and robust peer review process, aligning with our commitment to publish the most credible and valid research. Care is taken not to invite any Editorial Board Member that has any potential conflict of interest with any author of the paper.

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.

Artificial Intelligence

Sage recognizes the value of large language models (LLMs) (e.g. ChatGPT) and generative AI as productivity tools that can help authors in preparing their article for submission; to generate initial ideas for a structure, for example, or when summarizing, paraphrasing, language polishing etc. However, it is important to note that all language models have limitations and are unable to replicate human creative and critical thinking. Human intervention with these tools is essential to ensure that content presented is accurate and appropriate to the reader. Sage therefore requires authors to be aware of the limitations of language models and to consider these in any use of LLMs in their submissions:

Objectivity: Previously published content that contains racist, sexist or other biases can be present in LLM-generated text, and minority viewpoints may not be represented. Use of LLMs has the potential to perpetuate these biases because the information is decontextualized and harder to detect.

Accuracy: LLMs can ‘hallucinate’ i.e. generate false content, especially when used outside of their domain or when dealing with complex or ambiguous topics. They can generate content that is linguistically but not scientifically plausible, they can get facts wrong, and they have been shown to generate citations that don’t exist. Some LLMs are only trained on content published before a particular date and therefore present an incomplete picture.

Contextual understanding: LLMs cannot apply human understanding to the context of a piece of text, especially when dealing with idiomatic expressions, sarcasm, humor, or metaphorical language. This can lead to errors or misinterpretations in the generated content.

Training data: LLMs require a large amount of high-quality training data to achieve optimal performance. However, in some domains or languages, such data may not be readily available, limiting the usefulness of the model.

Guidance for authors

Authors are required to:

Clearly indicate the use of language models in the manuscript, including which model was used and for what purpose. Please use the methods or acknowledgements section, as appropriate.

Verify the accuracy, validity, and appropriateness of the content and any citations generated by language models and correct any errors or inconsistencies.

Provide a list of sources used to generate content and citations, including those generated by language models. Double-check citations to ensure they are accurate, and are properly referenced.

Be conscious of the potential for plagiarism where the LLM may have reproduced substantial text from other sources. Check the original sources to be sure you are not plagiarizing someone else’s work.

Acknowledge the limitations of language models in the manuscript, including the potential for bias, errors, and gaps in knowledge.

Please note that AI bots such as ChatGPT should not be listed as an author on your submission.

We will take appropriate corrective action where we identify published articles with undisclosed use of such tools.

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.

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:
Carl L. Backer, MD, Editor; Cincinnati Children's Hospital, Cincinnati, USA and University of Kentucky, Lexington, USA
Virginia F. Hawkins, Managing Editor
E-mail:WJPCHS@wspchs.org
Telephone: 302-326-9313
Twitter: @WJPCHS