Editorial Policy

HJBHS is an international peer-reviewed journal dedicated to advancing scientific knowledge in biomedical and health sciences. The journal welcomes high-quality submissions that contribute to evidence-based clinical practice and research related to the field of biomedical and health sciences.

The journal publishes a wide range of article types, including original quantitative and qualitative studies, clinical trials, case reports, case series, analytical and descriptive research, laboratory-based studies, short communications, letters to the editor, and special topic reports. The journal also considers high-quality secondary research such as systematic reviews, meta-analyses, scoping reviews, narrative reviews, practice guidelines, methodological papers, conference abstracts, innovation reports, and invited expert contributions. All submissions must be written clearly enough to be understood by a broad readership and should contribute to improved patient care, professional practice, or scientific understanding.

Manuscripts submitted to HJBHS must be original, unpublished, and not under consideration by any other journal. The journal follows the guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) in all matters of authorship, ethical conduct, peer review, and publication integrity. Authors are encouraged to review ICMJE and COPE guidelines at www.icmje.org and www.publicationethics.org.

Authorship Criteria

Authorship confers credit and has important academic, social, and financial implications as well as accountability for published work. It is the moral obligation of an editorial board to ensure that individuals making significant contributions to a paper are given credit for it, but also to ensure that the authors understand their role in taking responsibility for their publication. HJBHS follows the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) guidelines, which recommend that authorship be based on the following four criteria:

  • Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
  • Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
  • Final approval of the version to be published; AND
  • Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

All those designated as authors should meet all four criteria for authorship, and all who meet the four criteria should be identified as authors. Those who do not meet all four criteria but have made a substantive contribution to the research should be acknowledged in the acknowledgment section of the article. Publications from both national and international authors are accepted. It is important to note that:

  • Funding agencies, data collectors, and biostatisticians do not justify authorship.
  • Once the authorship certificate is submitted, no further changes will be allowed in the sequence and/or addition of new authors.

Authors’ Contributions

An author contribution statement defining each author’s contribution to the article should be provided. This must be done in two forms: by filling out the authors’ undertaking and authorship letter, which can be downloaded from the journal website. For review articles, where individual statements are less applicable, a statement should be included that clarifies who was responsible for the ideation, who performed the literature search and/or data analysis, and who drafted and revised the work.

Deceased Authors

Deceased authors would be included with a death dagger (†) next to the author’s name and a footnote stating that the author is deceased, along with the date of death.

Submission of Manuscript

Authors should prepare the manuscript according to the specifications given in the journal author's guidelines. All manuscripts submitted through the appropriate channel will be entertained for review. Manuscripts sent to the editor’s email should not be accepted. Authors listed on the manuscript should have met the requirements for authorship specified above. Without final acceptance from the corresponding author, no manuscript will be published. Once the document is submitted to our journal, it is expected that all the authors have been accepted and they will be bound to the terms and conditions of the journal. The contact information of all authors and the Declaration of Conflicts of Interest should be stated in the manuscript.

Manuscript Withdrawal Policy

Once the corresponding author has confirmed to withdraw the submitted article, the author must communicate with the Editor-in-Chief via email. A manuscript withdrawal form will be sent to the author’s email, following which all the respective authors should sign and express their interest in withdrawal. Upon receiving the completed form from the corresponding author, further processing of the article will be stopped. There are very minimal processing charges, and no publication charges are involved in the publication of articles.

Conflict of Interest

Conflicts may be due to personal reasons, financial relationships, or academic competitions. They may also arise from intellectual passion. Whatever the reason for conflicts of interest, the credibility of the journal, author, and science itself may be influenced from null to high potential. These influences may affect the scientific judgment of the research carried out. It is very important to disclose any conflicts of interest that occurred during the research process. This will help evaluators, critics, and readers to understand the context and integrity of the research.

Patient Consent: Informed and Written

HJBHS follows the World Medical Association (WMA) guidelines that developed the Declaration of Helsinki as a statement of ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects, material, and data. All registered clinical trainees should have informed consents from the patients in which the procedure and method of research are mentioned in detail, and all the possible effects were clearly explained to the patients.

Research and Publication Misconduct

HJBHS follows the guidelines provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) for dealing with research and publication misconduct. Duplicating existing publications, a high level of copy in plagiarism, fraudulent or fabricated data, changes in authorship, not disclosing a conflict of interest, and research without ethical clearance can be listed under research and publication misconduct. However, in suspected cases of misconduct, a manuscript may be revealed to members of the university's ethical committee and institutions/organizations that may require it for the resolution of the misconduct.

Role of Plagiarism Committee

All the submitted articles are scanned with Turnitin, and the similarity report should be less than 19%. Upon completion of the plagiarism scan, they analyze the quality of the manuscript and report to the editor, after which the manuscript is assigned for the review process. A plagiarism report is created, which is emailed to the author along with a review report. The committee looks into plagiarism-related issues and deals with them according to COPE guidelines.

Acknowledgment

Acknowledgment should cover the persons other than those who claim authorship, especially Individuals who worked for manuscript development, funding agency, or persons who provided resources, Organizations that provided support for the smooth run of the research.

Confidentiality

HJBHS will not disclose any research paper submitted to it. Once the original research, after proper registration in any clinical registry or scientific agency, is submitted to the journal will be treated as the most confidential material, and maintaining its confidentiality is our responsibility. We will share the article with manuscript developers, reviewers, and editors in various stages of processing after the submission is confirmed.

Review of Articles

Submitted manuscripts are reviewed for originality, significance, adequacy of documentation, reader interest, and composition. Manuscripts not submitted according to instructions will be returned to the author for correction before beginning the peer review/process. Revised manuscripts are judged on the adequacy of responses to suggestions and criticisms made during the initial review. Each manuscript will be checked for technical, epidemiological, statistical, ethical, and language corrections. All parts of accepted manuscripts are subject to editing for scientific accuracy and clarity by the office of the Editor. The editorial board of the journal holds the right to a final decision of accepting or rejecting any article for publication in the journal, at any stage, including the editorial review.