Guidelines for Authors

About Orbis Journal of Medical and Health Sciences

Orbis Journal of Medical and Health Sciences is an international, peer reviewed, open access journal publishing scholarly work across medicine, biomedical sciences, healthcare, and the health sciences.

The journal considers research from across the continuum of basic science, translational investigation, clinical medicine, public and population health, healthcare delivery, medical education, technology, and emerging areas relevant to human health.

Manuscripts are evaluated according to their relevance to the journal, originality, scholarly contribution, methodological appropriateness, clarity of reporting, ethical conduct, and overall suitability for publication.

Authors are encouraged to review the journal's Aims & Scope before preparing a submission.

General submission requirements

Before submitting a manuscript, authors should ensure that the work is complete, accurate, appropriately reported, and suitable for consideration by Orbis JMHS.

A submission should meet the following general requirements:

• The manuscript falls within the journal's broad medical and health sciences scope.
• The work is original and has not been published in substantially the same form elsewhere.
• The manuscript is not simultaneously under consideration by another journal.
• All listed authors have reviewed and approved the submitted version.
• All authors meet appropriate authorship criteria.
• Relevant ethical approvals and informed consent have been obtained where applicable.
• Applicable reporting guidelines have been followed.
• Conflicts of interest and funding sources have been disclosed.
• Data availability and author contribution statements are included where appropriate.
• References have been prepared in Vancouver style.
• Tables and figures are numbered and cited in the text.
• The manuscript has been reviewed for accuracy, clarity, and completeness.

Types of manuscripts considered

Orbis JMHS considers a broad range of scholarly formats. Authors should select the article type that most accurately reflects the nature and methodology of their work.

The editorial team may consider other scholarly formats when the work is appropriate to the journal's scope and contributes meaningfully to the medical or health sciences literature.

Recommended manuscript length

The following limits are intended as general guidance rather than absolute editorial restrictions.

Word counts generally exclude the abstract, references, tables, figure legends, acknowledgments, and supplementary material.

Preparing the manuscript

Manuscripts should be written in clear academic English and organized in a manner appropriate to the article type and study design.

Authors should use descriptive section headings and ensure that the manuscript provides sufficient methodological and contextual detail to allow readers, reviewers, and editors to understand and evaluate the work.

Manuscripts should generally include:

• Title page
• Abstract where required
• Keywords
• Main manuscript text
• Ethics and consent statements where applicable
• Author contribution statement
• Conflict of interest statement
• Funding statement
• Data availability statement where appropriate
• Acknowledgments where applicable
• References
• Tables and figures
• Supplementary material where applicable

Continuous line numbering and page numbering are encouraged when possible because they facilitate peer review and editorial communication.

Required title page information

The title page should include:

• Full manuscript title
• Short running title where appropriate
• Full names of all authors
• Academic or professional affiliations
• Department, institution, city, and country for each affiliation
• Corresponding author's name
• Corresponding author's email address
• ORCID identifiers where available
• Word count where applicable
• Number of tables and figures
• Conflict of interest declaration
• Funding information

The manuscript title should be accurate, concise, informative, and representative of the work. Authors should avoid unsupported claims, unnecessary abbreviations, and promotional language.

Abstract preparation

The abstract should accurately summarize the manuscript and should not contain information or conclusions that are not supported by the main text.

Original Research

Original research articles should normally include a structured abstract of no more than approximately 250 words using:

• Background
• Methods
• Results
• Conclusions

Systematic and Scoping Reviews

Reviews using systematic methods should normally include a structured abstract of approximately 250 words. Headings may be adapted to the methodology but should clearly communicate the background, methods, principal findings, and conclusions.

Case Reports

Case reports should normally include a structured abstract of approximately 200 words using:

• Background
• Case Presentation
• Conclusion

Keywords

Authors should provide approximately 3 to 6 keywords after the abstract. Medical Subject Headings, or MeSH terms, are encouraged where appropriate.

Original research articles

Original research manuscripts should generally follow the IMRaD structure consisting of Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion.

Introduction

The introduction should summarize relevant background information, identify the knowledge gap or research problem, and clearly state the study objective, research question, or hypothesis.

Methods

The Methods section should provide enough detail for readers to understand how the study was conducted and, where appropriate, to reproduce or critically evaluate the work.

Authors should describe applicable elements including:

• Study design
• Study setting
• Study period
• Participants or study population
• Eligibility criteria
• Recruitment or sampling methods
• Interventions or exposures
• Outcome measures
• Data collection methods
• Measurement instruments
• Sample size considerations
• Statistical methods
• Software used for analysis
• Ethical approval and informed consent

Results

Results should be presented clearly and objectively. Authors should report findings in a logical sequence and avoid unnecessary duplication between the text, tables, and figures.

Discussion

The Discussion should interpret the findings in the context of the research question and existing literature. Authors should address the principal findings, comparison with prior work, possible explanations, strengths and limitations, implications, and areas requiring further investigation.

Conclusion

Conclusions should be supported directly by the results and should avoid overstating clinical, scientific, or policy implications.

Systematic reviews and meta analyses

Systematic reviews should use transparent, reproducible methods for identifying, selecting, evaluating, and synthesizing evidence.

Authors should follow the current PRISMA reporting framework where applicable and include an appropriate study selection flow diagram.

The manuscript should describe:

• Review question and objectives
• Eligibility criteria
• Databases and information sources searched
• Complete search dates
• Search strategy
• Study selection procedures
• Data extraction procedures
• Risk of bias or quality assessment
• Methods of evidence synthesis
• Statistical methods for meta analysis where applicable
• Assessment of heterogeneity where applicable
• Protocol registration information where available or required

Authors should submit the relevant reporting checklist when requested by the editorial team.

Scoping reviews

Scoping reviews should systematically map the literature, characterize the extent and nature of evidence, clarify concepts, identify knowledge gaps, or examine how research has been conducted within a defined field.

Authors should follow PRISMA ScR where applicable and describe the review methodology with sufficient detail to permit assessment of the search, selection, charting, and synthesis processes.

The manuscript should clearly distinguish a scoping review from a traditional narrative review and should explain why the scoping methodology was appropriate for the research objective.

Narrative and scholarly reviews

Narrative reviews should provide a balanced, scholarly, and evidence informed synthesis of an important topic in medicine or the health sciences.

Authors should clearly define the focus of the review, describe relevant literature selection methods when appropriate, critically evaluate the available evidence, identify areas of agreement or uncertainty, and distinguish established evidence from author interpretation.

Narrative reviews should contribute more than a descriptive summary of previously published literature.

Case reports

Case reports should provide meaningful clinical or educational value. Reports may describe unusual presentations, diagnostic challenges, treatment responses, adverse events, rare conditions, important complications, or other observations that contribute to clinical knowledge.

Case reports should follow CARE reporting guidance where applicable.

A typical case report should include:

• Introduction or background
• Patient information
• Relevant clinical findings
• Diagnostic assessment
• Therapeutic intervention
• Follow up and outcomes
• Discussion
• Patient perspective where appropriate and available
• Conclusion or learning points

Case series

Case series should describe a clinically coherent group of patients or observations and should provide sufficient detail regarding case selection, clinical characteristics, interventions, outcomes, and interpretation.

Authors should explain how cases were identified and should avoid implying causal or comparative conclusions when the design does not support them.

Clinical audits and quality improvement studies

Orbis JMHS welcomes well designed clinical audits and quality improvement studies that evaluate healthcare performance, implementation, patient safety, clinical processes, or measurable improvements in care.

Authors should identify the relevant standard, benchmark, guideline, or quality target against which performance was assessed.

Where applicable, manuscripts should describe:

• Clinical or organizational problem
• Setting and context
• Audit criteria or quality standards
• Baseline measurement
• Intervention or change strategy
• Outcome measures
• Reaudit or follow up measurement
• Observed improvement or lack of improvement
• Limitations
• Sustainability and implications for practice

Quality improvement reports should follow SQUIRE guidance where appropriate.

Brief reports, viewpoints, images, letters, and editorials

Brief Reports

Brief reports should present focused scholarly findings in a concise format. Methodological and ethical requirements remain equivalent to those expected of longer research articles.

Perspectives and Viewpoints

Perspectives should provide scholarly analysis or interpretation of an important scientific, clinical, educational, technological, or healthcare issue. Assertions should be appropriately supported.

Clinical Images

Clinical images should demonstrate a clear educational message. Images must be of adequate quality and accompanied by a concise description, relevant clinical context, and appropriate patient consent where applicable.

Letters to the Editor

Letters may address material published by the journal or discuss concise topics of scientific, clinical, or scholarly relevance. Letters should remain focused and professionally written.

Editorials

Editorials generally address topics of particular relevance to the journal or its readership. Editorials may be invited or considered at the discretion of the editorial team.

Study specific reporting standards

Authors should follow recognized reporting standards appropriate to the design and methodology of their work.

Authors may be asked to provide the appropriate reporting checklist or flow diagram during editorial review.

Statistical methods and reporting

Statistical methods should be described with sufficient detail to permit an informed reader to understand how the analyses were conducted.

Authors should report, where applicable:

• Statistical tests used
• Justification for analytical methods
• Sample size or power considerations
• Measures of central tendency and dispersion
• Effect estimates
• Confidence intervals
• Exact P values where appropriate
• Handling of missing data
• Adjustment for confounding variables
• Multiple comparison procedures where relevant
• Statistical software and version

Statistical significance should not be treated as equivalent to clinical or scientific importance. Authors are encouraged to report effect sizes and confidence intervals where appropriate.

Preparing tables

Tables should present information clearly and should supplement rather than unnecessarily duplicate information presented in the main text.

• Number tables consecutively in the order they are cited.
• Provide a concise descriptive title for each table.
• Submit tables in an editable format where possible.
• Define abbreviations in table notes.
• Identify statistical measures clearly.
• Include appropriate units of measurement.
• Cite the source of reproduced or adapted material.
• Obtain permission where required for copyrighted material.

Preparing figures and images

Figures should be clear, relevant, and of sufficient quality for publication.

• Number figures consecutively in the order cited.
• Provide a complete legend for each figure.
• Use high resolution images whenever possible.
• Ensure labels and text remain legible when displayed.
• Remove patient identifying information.
• Disclose image enhancement or processing when relevant.
• Do not manipulate images in a manner that alters scientific meaning.
• Obtain permission for previously published figures where required.

Adjustments to brightness, contrast, or color should be applied consistently and must not obscure, remove, introduce, or misrepresent information.

Supplementary files

Supplementary material may be submitted when it provides useful information that supports the manuscript but is not essential to the primary narrative.

Examples include additional tables, figures, questionnaires, protocols, statistical information, search strategies, datasets, appendices, and multimedia content.

Supplementary material should be clearly labeled and referenced in the main manuscript.

Vancouver reference style

Orbis JMHS uses Vancouver style. References should be numbered consecutively according to the first appearance of the source in the manuscript.

In text citations should normally appear using square brackets: [1], [2,3], or [4–7].

Authors are responsible for ensuring that references are accurate, complete, relevant, and appropriately cited.

Journal article

Journal article with DOI

Book

Book chapter

Website

Report

Journal titles should be abbreviated according to accepted biomedical indexing conventions where appropriate.

Scientific writing conventions

Manuscripts should use clear, professional English. Authors should define nonstandard abbreviations at first use and avoid excessive abbreviation.

Standard internationally recognized units should be used where appropriate. Drug names should generally be reported using nonproprietary names. If a proprietary name is scientifically relevant, the generic name should also be provided where possible.

Terminology should be accurate, respectful, and appropriate to the population or scientific subject being described.

Ethical conduct of research

Research involving human participants, animals, identifiable clinical information, or other ethically regulated activities must comply with applicable institutional, national, and international ethical standards.

Authors are responsible for obtaining all required approvals before conducting the research and for accurately reporting the ethical oversight of the work.

The editorial team may request supporting documentation when necessary to clarify ethical approval, participant consent, registration, or research oversight.

Research involving human participants

Manuscripts involving human participants should identify the institutional review board, research ethics committee, or other responsible reviewing body where applicable.

The manuscript should state:

• Name of the approving or reviewing body
• Approval or reference number where available
• Whether informed consent was obtained
• Whether consent was waived and by whom, where applicable

If formal ethical review was not required, authors should state this and provide the relevant institutional or regulatory basis where appropriate.

Informed consent and identifiable information

Authors must protect the privacy and confidentiality of patients and research participants.

Identifying information should not be published unless it is scientifically necessary and appropriate consent for publication has been obtained.

Written consent for publication should be obtained when a patient may be identifiable from photographs, clinical images, case descriptions, unique characteristics, dates, or combinations of information.

Removing a patient's name alone may not be sufficient to ensure anonymity.

Research involving animals

Animal research should comply with applicable institutional, national, and international standards for animal welfare and experimental conduct.

Authors should identify the relevant animal ethics or oversight committee and provide the approval number where applicable.

Manuscripts should describe efforts to minimize animal suffering and should report methods with sufficient detail to permit scientific evaluation.

Clinical trial registration

Prospective registration of clinical trials is expected where applicable under recognized research and publication standards.

Authors should provide the registry name, registration number, and registration date within the manuscript.

Randomized controlled trials should be reported according to applicable CONSORT guidance.

Authorship criteria

Authorship should reflect meaningful intellectual and scholarly responsibility for the work.

Orbis JMHS follows the general authorship principles established by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors.

An author should meet all four criteria:

1. Substantial contribution to the conception or design of the work, or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data.
2. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content.
3. Final approval of the version to be published.
4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work and to ensure that questions related to its accuracy or integrity are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Individuals who contribute to the work but do not meet authorship criteria should ordinarily be recognized in the acknowledgments rather than listed as authors.

Guest, honorary, and ghost authorship are inconsistent with responsible scholarly publishing.

Contribution statements

Authors should provide a statement describing individual contributions to the work.

Contributor roles may include conceptualization, methodology, investigation, data curation, formal analysis, software, visualization, writing, supervision, project administration, and funding acquisition.

The CRediT contributor taxonomy may be used where appropriate.

Acknowledging contributors

Individuals or organizations that contributed to the work but do not meet authorship criteria may be acknowledged with their permission.

Authors should disclose relevant editorial assistance, technical support, language editing, medical writing assistance, or other substantive contributions where appropriate.

Competing interests and disclosures

All authors should disclose relationships or circumstances that could reasonably be perceived as influencing the work.

Potential conflicts may be financial, professional, institutional, intellectual, personal, or otherwise relevant to interpretation of the manuscript.

If no conflicts exist, authors should include a statement such as:

Funding disclosure

Authors should identify all financial support relevant to the research or preparation of the manuscript.

The funding statement should identify the funder and grant number where applicable and should describe the funder's role in study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, manuscript preparation, or publication decisions when relevant.

If no funding was received, authors may state:

Research data and availability statements

Authors should provide a data availability statement for research articles where appropriate.

The statement should explain whether supporting data are:

• Publicly available in a repository
• Included within the article or supplementary material
• Available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request
• Restricted because of privacy, ethical, contractual, or legal considerations
• Not applicable to the article type

Authors should not publicly release confidential or identifiable participant data in violation of ethical or legal requirements.

Use of artificial intelligence and AI assisted technologies

Artificial intelligence tools cannot qualify as authors because they cannot assume responsibility or accountability for published work.

Human authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, integrity, references, analysis, interpretation, and conclusions of submitted manuscripts.

Material use of generative artificial intelligence or other AI assisted technologies in manuscript preparation, analysis, image generation, coding, or other substantive scholarly activities should be disclosed when relevant.

Authors should independently verify AI generated factual claims, calculations, references, and citations.

Fabricated references, invented data, undisclosed manipulation, or misleading AI generated content are not acceptable.

AI tools should not be used in a manner that compromises patient privacy, confidential data, unpublished research, or legally protected information.

Plagiarism and research misconduct

Orbis JMHS expects manuscripts to reflect responsible research and publication practices.

Potential misconduct may include:

• Plagiarism
• Fabrication of data
• Falsification of data
• Inappropriate image manipulation
• Misrepresentation of research methods
• Undisclosed duplicate publication
• Improper authorship practices
• Citation manipulation
• Misleading or fraudulent reporting

Manuscripts may be screened using available editorial tools. Concerns identified before or after publication may be investigated and addressed in accordance with appropriate publication ethics practices.

Originality and exclusive consideration

Manuscripts submitted to Orbis JMHS should not be simultaneously under consideration by another journal.

Authors should disclose closely related manuscripts, prior publications, conference abstracts, reports, or other dissemination that could reasonably be considered overlapping with the submitted work.

Secondary publication may be considered only when ethically and legally appropriate and when clearly disclosed and approved.

Preprints

Posting a manuscript on a recognized preprint platform does not necessarily prevent consideration by Orbis JMHS.

Authors should disclose the existence of a preprint at submission and provide its persistent link or identifier where available.

Authors remain responsible for ensuring that prior dissemination does not violate third party rights, contractual obligations, or applicable research policies.

Open access publication

Orbis Journal of Medical and Health Sciences is an open access journal. Published articles are made freely available online to readers.

The applicable open access license is displayed with the published article and determines the conditions under which the work may be shared, reused, or adapted.

Authors are responsible for obtaining permission to reproduce copyrighted material from third party sources when permission is required.

Editorial and peer review process

Submitted manuscripts undergo initial editorial assessment before external peer review.

Initial screening may consider scope, completeness, ethical requirements, reporting quality, originality, scholarly relevance, methodological appropriateness, and overall suitability for the journal.

Manuscripts considered suitable for further evaluation may be sent to independent reviewers with relevant subject or methodological expertise.

Reviewers provide recommendations and comments to assist the editorial team in assessing the manuscript. Peer review does not guarantee acceptance.

Authors may be asked to revise the manuscript and provide a point by point response to reviewer and editor comments.

Decisions, revisions, and appeals

Editorial decisions may include:

• Accept
• Minor revision
• Major revision
• Decline with invitation to resubmit
• Reject

Decisions are based on the manuscript as a whole, including its scientific quality, relevance, reporting, ethical compliance, reviewer feedback, and suitability for the journal.

Authors who believe an editorial decision was based on a substantial factual or procedural misunderstanding may contact the editorial office with a concise, evidence based explanation.

Corrections, retractions, and expressions of concern

Orbis JMHS is committed to maintaining the accuracy and integrity of the scholarly record.

Published articles may be corrected when errors are identified that affect the accuracy or interpretation of the publication but do not invalidate the work as a whole.

Retraction may be considered when findings are unreliable because of major error or misconduct, when publication is redundant or unethical, or when other serious concerns substantially undermine the integrity of the article.

An expression of concern may be issued when significant unresolved questions exist and further investigation is required.

Final checklist before submission

Submitting your manuscript

Manuscripts should be submitted through the Orbis JMHS online journal submission system.

Authors may be asked to create an account, enter manuscript metadata, provide author information, upload manuscript files, submit supplementary material, and complete required declarations.

Questions about submission?

Authors who are uncertain about article type, journal scope, manuscript requirements, or submission procedures may contact the editorial office.