GUIDELINES TO EDITORIAL POLICIES
Malaysian Journal of Medicine and Health Sciences
pISSN: 1675-8544 | eISSN: 2636-9346
Last revised on 10 September 2024
The Malaysian Journal of Medicine and Health Sciences (MJMHS) is a peer-reviewed journal of Medicine, Clinical Research and Health Sciences. To facilitate a smooth publication process, authors who are considering submitting to MJMHS are strongly encouraged to read the following guidelines:
To submit a manuscript, please go to https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/mjmhs. If you do not have an MJMHS author account on the Editorial Manager, create an account and log in with your username and password. Before uploading your manuscript to the Editorial Manager, ensure all the documents are described in the manuscript preparation section.
All submitted manuscripts undergo rigorous editorial checks before they are sent for peer review. The manuscripts are checked for plagiarism and format. Manuscripts that do not pass the initial assessments will be unsubmitted without peer review.
Download the “Conflict of Interest Form” and “Copyright Agreement Form” from the Instructions & Forms tab. Completed forms and manuscripts should be submitted during the submission period.
The manuscript will not be accepted unless it is formatted according to the journal style and follows the “Author Guideline: Manuscript Types and Format.”
All materials submitted for publication should be submitted exclusively to the MJMHS unless stated otherwise.
Peer Review
All manuscripts submitted undergo a double-blinded peer-review process and are managed online. Authors can suggest individuals qualified in the field to review the article. However, the reviewers must not be affiliated with the same institution(s) or have any potential conflicts of interest in reviewing the manuscript. The editor’s decision to accept or reject these reviewers is final. Decisions on manuscripts are made in accordance with the ‘Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals’ (www.icmje.org/index.html).
Revision
Articles sent for revision to the authors do not guarantee that the paper will be accepted. Authors are given approximately 2 weeks to return their revised manuscript. If the revision is not received within 3 months, the Editorial Office will reject the manuscript and shall not allow it to be submitted as a new manuscript.
The final decision to publish or not to publish the articles lies with the Editor in Chief. The editor retains the right to determine the style and, if necessary, edit and shorten any material accepted for publication.
When the galley proof is ready, the Editorial Office will send the proof to the authors to check for its completeness. Confirmation or comments from the authors must be given within 48 hours of receipt of the proof to avoid delays in the publication of the manuscript. Significant alterations to the text and amendments in the author list will not be entertained at this stage, and the authors are responsible for all statements made in their work, including changes made by the Editorial team and authorised by the corresponding author.
Manuscripts without the authors’ approval of the galley proof and a completed Copyright Form will not be published. Once the author gives permission for publication, the Editorial Office will not be held responsible for any mistakes thereafter. No complimentary hard copy of the journal to authors is provided. However, the soft copy of the article can be obtained from the journal’s webpage: http://www.medic.upm.edu.my/our_journal-3046
Authors and contributors
Designated authors should meet all four criteria for authorship in the ICMJE Recommendations. Journal articles will not be published unless the signatures of all authors are received. The author statement form should be uploaded. Written consent of any cited individual(s) noted in acknowledgements or personal communications should be included.
Conflict of interests
All submissions to MJMHS must disclose all relationships that could be viewed as presenting a potential or actual conflict of interest. All authors must declare their interest and complete the declaration form, which should be uploaded.
Authors must state all possible conflicts of interest in the manuscript, including financial, consultant, institutional and other relationships that might lead to bias or a conflict of interest. If there is no conflict of interest, this should be explicitly stated as none declared. All sources of funding should be acknowledged in the manuscript. All relevant conflicts of interest and sources of funding should be included on the title page of the manuscript with the heading “Conflicts of Interest and Source of Funding:”
A conflict of interest exists when professional judgment concerning a primary interest (such as patients’ welfare or the validity of research) may be influenced by a secondary interest (financial gain). Financial relationships can also occur because of personal relationships, rivalries, academic competition, or intellectual beliefs. The editor may use such information as a basis for editorial decisions and publish such disclosures if they are necessary for readers to judge the manuscript.
Agreements between authors and study sponsors that interfere with authors’ access to all of a study’s data and interfere with their ability to analyse and interpret the data and prepare and publish manuscripts independently may represent conflicts of interest and should be avoided.
Permission to reproduce previously published material
Authors should include with their submission copies of written permission to reproduce material published elsewhere (such as illustrations) from the copyright holder. Authors are responsible for paying any fees to reproduce the material.
Language
All articles submitted must be written in British English. The Editorial Office does not offer copyediting services; therefore, the author’s responsibility is to ensure that the English language is thoroughly revised before submitting the work for publication. The authors are responsible for sending their articles for grammar and editing services. The Editorial Office reserves the right to reject a manuscript if the use of language is deemed too poor.
Organisation
The following documents are required for each submission, in this order:
- Cover Letter
- Title Page
- Manuscript
- Tables (if any)
- Figures (or illustrations) (if any)
- Copyright Assignment Form (signed by all the authors)
- Conflict of Interest Form
- Supplementary documents (if any)
Cover Letter
The cover letter should be uploaded during the online submission process. The authors should highlight the importance/novelty of the research and its relevance to publication in MJMHS.
Title Page
The title page should be an individual document, uploaded separately, that provides:
- Title of manuscript
- Full name of all authors; underline the family/last name, e.g. Lekhraj Rampal, Chih-Kong Tong, Fazila Hanis Hashim
- Full postal address of all authors’ institutions including postal/pin codes
- Details of the corresponding author
- Designation and name of the corresponding author
- Contact details: email, telephone and fax number
Please refer to the sample of the ‘Title Page’ that could be obtained from the ‘Instruction & Forms’ tab.
Authors
Persons designated authors should have participated sufficiently in the work to justify authorship. Kindly refer to the section on authorship in the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals, available at www.icmje.org. The editor may require authors to justify the assignment of authorship.
Adding a new author after an article has been submitted is not permitted. However, MJMHS may consider the request based on justifications if the manuscript is still under revision, or if the reviewers require new data from researchers who were not listed as authors during submission.
- Please be advised that all manuscripts submitted to the MJMHS will be screened for plagiarism/duplication. MJMHS adopts a zero-tolerance toward plagiarism.
- Authors are required to paraphrase all reference citations in their own words. This is to prevent any misunderstandings regarding plagiarism.
- In the case where a particular citation would lose its original meaning and essence if paraphrasing is attempted, the journal requires authors to enclose the citation in quotation marks (“”) to indicate that it is a direct quote from the source. However, excessive quotation marks are discouraged and should be utilised only when necessary.
- All submitted manuscripts will be screened for the similarity index with other published articles. Failure to comply with the accepted level of similarity index will result in resubmission for rectification or an outright rejection of manuscripts without peer review.
- Besides, any individual resource that exceeds 2% of the similarity index will be subjected to resubmission.
- If the excerpt or sentences were taken directly from a published resource without paraphrasing, they should be written in quotation marks (“xxxxxxx xxxx xxxx”) with reference.
- Submissions that are identical (or substantially similar) to previously published, accepted for publication, or submitted in parallel to other conferences are NOT appropriate for submission to MJMHS and violate our dual submission policy.
- If you are in doubt (particularly in the case of material you have posted on a website), we ask you to proceed with your submission but to include a copy of the relevant previously published work or work under consideration by other journals.
- Policy on Near-Duplicate Submissions o Multiple submissions with an excessive amount of overlap in their text or technical content are NOT acceptable. The Editors reserve the right to immediately reject all submissions they deem to be excessively similar and by the same authors. Such “shotgun submissions” are unacceptable, unfair to authors who submit single original papers, and place an additional strain on the review process.
Subject consent forms
Subjects have a right to privacy that should not be infringed without informed consent. Identifying details (written or photographic) should be omitted if they are not essential, but subject data should never be altered or falsified to attain anonymity. Complete anonymity is difficult to achieve, and a consent form should be obtained if there is any doubt. For example, masking the eye region in photographs of subjects is inadequate protection of anonymity. When informed consent has been obtained, it should be indicated in the published article. A sample patient consent form is available here if required.
Ethics committee approval
Authors must sign a declaration that the research was conducted within the guidelines below and under the terms of all relevant local legislation. Please also look at the latest version of the Declaration of Helsinki. The Editors reserve the right to judge the appropriateness of the use and treatment of humans or animals in experiments for publication in the journal. For clinical studies, it is imperative that authors secure signed informed consent from the respective institutes or hospitals permitting the utilization of patient images for publication.
Human experiments: All work must be conducted following the Declaration of Helsinki. Papers describing experimental work on human participants, which carries a risk of harm, must include (1) a statement that the experiments were conducted with the understanding and consent of each participant and (2) a statement that the responsible ethical committee has approved the experiments.
Animal experiments: In papers describing experiments on living animals include (1) a full description of any anaesthetic and surgical procedure used and (2) evidence that all possible steps were taken to avoid animals’ suffering at each stage of the experiment. Describe the precautions taken to ensure adequate anaesthesia in experiments involving muscle relaxants.
Experiments on isolated tissues: Indicate precisely how you obtained the donor tissue. The NIH guide for the care and use of laboratory animals (National Institutes of Health Publications No. 80-23, revised 1978) gives guidelines for the acquisition and care of animals.
Clinical trials and behavioural evaluations
Authors reporting results of randomised controlled trials should submit a complete checklist from the CONSORT statement, see http://www.consort-statement.org. For behavioural and public health evaluations involving non-randomised designs, authors should include with their submission a comprehensive checklist from the TREND statement, see Am J Public Health 2004; 94:361-366 or http://www.cdc.gov/trendstatement/.
Registration of clinical trials: Clinical trial registration in a public registry is required. Registration of a trial must be at or before the enrollment of participants. This policy, in concert with the ICMJE, applies to clinical trials starting enrollment after 1st July 2005. For trials beginning enrollment before this date, the journal will require registration by 13th September 2005. We will use the definition proposed by the ICMJE of a ‘clinical trial as a research project that prospectively assigns human subjects to intervention or comparison groups to study a cause and effect relationship between a medical intervention and a health outcome’ see N Engl J Med 2004; 364:911. Studies such as phase 1 trials will be exempt. The editors do not advocate one particular registry but require that the registry be utilised to meet the criteria set out in the statement of policy of the ICMJE. Thus, the registry must include an identifying number of the trial, a description of the intervention(s), comparison(s) investigated, hypothesis, primary and secondary outcome measures, eligibility and exclusion criteria, dates of start, anticipated follow-up and closure, number of subjects, funding source, and contact information for the principal investigator.
The Malaysian Journal of Medicine and Health Sciences (MJMHS) is committed to maintaining the integrity and quality of the scholarly record. This policy outlines the corrections, withdrawals, and retractions procedures to ensure transparency and adherence to ethical publishing standards.
Corrections
Errors
Significant errors in research that do not invalidate the entire study, such as minor methodological flaws, statistical errors, or misinterpretations of results, will be addressed through a correction. MJMHS aims to correct such errors promptly to maintain the accuracy of the published work.
Authorship Disputes
Valid claims regarding inappropriate authorship or the omission of contributors can be resolved through correction without retracting the entire publication. MJMHS will work with the authors to address and rectify authorship issues.
Types of Corrections
Corrigendum
If an error is identified that requires correction but does not affect the overall integrity or findings of the article, MJMHS will publish a Corrigendum. The authors are responsible for drafting the Corrigendum, and all authors must consent to its publication. The Corrigendum will be linked to the original article to ensure clarity and transparency.
Erratum
In rare cases where errors occur during publication, MJMHS may issue an Erratum to correct these errors. The Erratum will be linked to the corrected article, ensuring that readers are aware of the changes made.
Withdrawals
Duplicate Publication
If an article is found to have been published elsewhere without proper citation, permission, or justification, it may be withdrawn from MJMHS before or immediately after publication. MJMHS takes duplicate publication seriously and will take swift action to address any violations.
Formatting and Pre-Publication Issues
Accepted articles in MJMHS are initially published in an uncorrected, unedited, non-typeset format. If any formatting issues or violations of MJMHS publishing policies are identified, the article may be withdrawn to prevent misinformation or confusion.
Articles-in-Press
Articles-in-press are preliminary versions of accepted articles that may be withdrawn before final publication if necessary. If an article is withdrawn, the HTML and PDF content will be replaced with notices explaining the withdrawal in accordance with the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines and MJMHS policies.
Retractions
Who Can Retract
Retractions in MJMHS can be initiated by the article’s authors, the journal editor or based on advice from the scholarly community to uphold the integrity of the research record.
Reasons for Retraction
MJMHS may issue retractions in cases of significant errors that affect the validity of the findings, plagiarism, multiple submissions, fraudulent data, authorship disputes, legal issues, breaches of ethical standards, undisclosed conflicts of interest, or concerns raised during post-publication peer review.
Factors for Consideration in Retractions
Scientific Misconduct
Plagiarism, data fabrication, falsification, or other forms of research misconduct will prompt retraction by MJMHS.
Significant Errors
Errors that invalidate the findings.
Ethical Violations
Issues related to consent, animal welfare, or undisclosed conflicts of interest.
Authorship Disputes
Valid claims of inappropriate authorship or omission.
Duplicate Publication
Improper or uncredited publication elsewhere.
Legal Issues
Legal constraints or court orders necessitating retraction.
Post-Publication Peer Review
Concerns raised about the validity of the research.
Conflict of Interest
Undisclosed conflicts affect the study’s outcomes.
Reproducibility
Inability to replicate results and undermining credibility.
Integrity of the Literature
Ensuring accuracy and trustworthiness in the scientific record.
MJMHS will contact authors for clarification before retracting any publication. When necessary, MJMHS will obtain validation from independent experts. It is ensured that all retraction notices are transparent and easy to understand. MJMHS also takes into consideration the impact on the scientific community and the trust in the journal, adhering to the guidelines set by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and MJMHS standards.
Notices of Retraction
MJMHS may issue an Expression of Concern or retract articles based on editorial decisions. An Expression of Concern may be issued when there is inconclusive evidence of research misconduct due to a lack of cooperation from the relevant institute or if the investigation is time-consuming.
Expression of Concern
An Expression of Concern will be issued by MJMHS promptly upon notification from authors or readers if there are concerns about the integrity of a published article. This will be clearly stated in the editorial section of MJMHS, which will identify the concerned article. The article will remain accessible with a red-flag warning. The notice may be temporary or permanent based on the outcome of an investigation. MJMHS reserves the right to revoke the notice if no evidence of misconduct is found.
Retraction Notices
Retraction notices in MJMHS are specific to single articles and will be announced promptly once evidence of misconduct or invalid data is established. The MJMHS editors will consult with authors and may seek a written agreement for retraction. If authors are uncooperative or delay the process, the editor may retract the article without consent. Retraction notices will clearly state the reasons for retraction and, with permission, may disclose the person responsible. All retraction notices will be published across all formats and appropriately labelled in bibliographical databases. Information on retracted articles will also be communicated to relevant retraction databases.
Effective 1 January 2022, MJMHS imposes a new publication fee for all regular issue articles.
Note: No publication fees for the supplementary issue manuscripts. The supplementary issue only caters to papers from the specific conference, seminar or institution, and all submissions are by invitation only.
Publication fee
- RM300.00
- For all accepted articles for publication
- Payment should be made within 30 days from the manuscript acceptance date. An email from EIC follows to request a publication fee
- Accepted manuscripts will be on hold for the issue assignment and publication until the publication fee is duly paid.
Please refer to the Publication Fees document at the “Instructions & Files” tab for payment method and additional information