Qatar Medical Journal

Qatar Medical Journal

Submissions

Qatar Medical Journal (QMJ) publishes high-quality manuscripts in the field of medicine, including original research articles, case reports, and invited editorials and review articles. Submissions should be relevant to the broad medical community, advancing knowledge, clinical practice, or policy. Cover letters are optional but may provide context for your submission. Authors should refer to our Ethical Policy and Authors' Responsibilities sections prior to submission.

Authors are advised that QMJ is a supporter of the CONSORT Statement, an evidence-based, minimum set of recommendations for reporting randomized controlled trials. It offers a standard way for authors to prepare reports of trial findings, facilitating their complete and transparent reporting, and aiding their critical appraisal and interpretation. In addition, we also adhere to the guidelines in the TREND Statement, a 22-item checklist specifically developed to guide standardized reporting of nonrandomized controlled trials. Where appropriate, authors should also adhere to the STARD Statement, PRISMA, and CARE guidelines.

Article Types

Original Research Articles

Original research articles report studies that advance scientific knowledge or provide new clinical evidence. Manuscripts should be rigorously conducted, clearly presented, and appropriately referenced, citing all relevant prior work.

Case Reports

Case reports present unique, educational, or clinically significant insights into medical practice. Submissions should describe the patient’s presentation, diagnosis, management, and follow-up, highlighting key lessons or novel aspects of care. Authors must ensure patient confidentiality and obtain informed consent. Manuscripts should be concise, well-structured, and adhere to the CARE guidelines.

Review Articles

Review articles provide a comprehensive, critical synthesis of current knowledge on a specific medical topic. They are typically invited by the Editor-in-Chief; however, authors with well-developed proposals are encouraged to submit. Manuscripts should be clearly organized, thoroughly referenced, and offer meaningful insights to advance understanding or clinical practice.

Editorials

Editorials offer expert commentary on significant medical issues, emerging research, or topics of interest to the journal's readership. They are generally authored by the Editor-in-Chief or editorial board, though guest editorials may occasionally be invited. Editorials should be concise, insightful, and provide a balanced perspective.

Word Limits:

Original research and review articles: ≤3,000 words (excluding references)
Case reports: ≤2,000 words
Editorials: ≤1,000 words

Manuscript Preparation

Manuscript must be in English and submitted via Editorial Manager in Word format.
Include continuous line numbering and Arabic page numbers starting with the title page. Use double spacing and begin each section on a new page (Title, Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, References).
The title page should contain all author details (names, affiliations, author's contributions statement, and corresponding author contact). All other documents must be anonymized for double-blind review.
The "Author's Contribution Statement" should include these authors' roles: Conceptualization, Methodology, Data Curation, Software & Validation, Investigation & Analysis, Visualization, Writing – Original Draft, Writing – Review & Editing, Resources, Supervision, Project Administration, and Funding Acquisition.
Each table should be presented on a separate page and include a clear title.
Figures must be of high quality; color figures are encouraged. Figures may be submitted in standard image formats. Legends should be included on a separate page.
Use SI units of measurement.
Authors are advised to assemble, analyze, and present their data according to: Altman DG et al. Statistical guidelines for contributors to medical journals. Br. Med. J. 1983; 286: 1489-1493.
References should be numbered consecutively in the order of citation using the Vancouver style. Authors are encouraged to follow ICMJE recommendations: Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals (Br Med J 1982; 284: 1766–70; Reprinted in Qatar Med J 1984; 5: 6–15).
Revised manuscripts must highlight changes using a different colour and include a point-by-point response to reviewers' comments in a table format (Column 1: List all comments in separate rows; Column 2: Detailed response to the queries and how it has been addressed in the manuscript; Column 3: Line and page numbering where the revision was implemented). Submissions/revisions without these elements will be returned.

Publishing Policy

Open Access: Articles are published as fully open access. They are published under the Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.As per this license, all articles are free to access, read, download, copy, distribute, and adapt as long as the original work is attributed to their original creators (https://www.qscience.com/open_access).

Copyright: The copyright of articles is retained by the authors. The authors grant Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU) Press a license to publish the articles and identify itself as the original publisher. The authors also grant any third party the right to use the article freely as long as its original authors, citation details, and publisher are identified. Formal terms and conditions can be read at the Creative Commons Website for the Attribution License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.

Privacy Statement: The personal information used on this website is to be used exclusively for the stated purposes of the journal. It will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.

Archiving: The journal articles are archived, for long-term preservation, on multiple servers around the world by our archiving and preservation partner CLOCKSS (https://clockss.org/).

Peer Review Policy

QMJ and HBKU Press take the peer review process seriously, and papers go through a rigorous peer review process. The submitted paper is sent to at least 2 external qualified experts in the topic of the paper. The journal uses a double-blind peer review process, meaning that the identities of reviewers and authors are not revealed to one another. Reviewers are given a structured review report to fill in to assist them in communicating structured and constructive feedback to authors. Usually, reviewers submit reports with comments or corrections suggestions for authors to address. When authors receive these reports, they need to revise their original submission and resubmit the paper with a letter highlighting the changes they have made, considering the reviewers' comments. Based on the reviewers' reports and authors' revision, the editor reaches a publication decision (reject/accept after revision/accept). The journal does not guarantee manuscript acceptance or very short peer review timelines. For more information about our main peer-review policy, please refer to https://www.qscience.com/reviewer_guidelines.

If the author is required to suggest reviewers, then author may consider the below tips:

Look for scholars who might be interested in reviewing your work.
Start with researchers referenced in your manuscript and maintain a database of their specialties and peer review experience.
Provide a diverse list of reviewers from different institutions, related fields, and viewpoints.
Ensure your recommendations are from experts in your field.
Take your time and be thorough when making suggestions.
Avoid suggesting reviewers you know personally, those from your target journal, or those who may simply agree with your work.
Do not suggest reviewers from the same affiliated institution as the authors, in order to avoid any potential conflict of interest.

Editorial Policy

On submission, if passing initial screening (following the journal's scope and guidelines), the manuscript is assigned to an editorial member for an initial assessment of the paper and whether to be considered for external peer reviewing or returned to authors. Please refer to the Ethical Policy and Publication Ethics section below.

The next step, the editor sends it to at least 2 external experts in the field of the paper for peer review; the editor manages the review process between the authors and reviewers and ensures that the authors have addressed all points of the reviewers in their revision. When all revisions have been completed and accepted by reviewers and the editor, the editor will notify the Editor in Chief, and a notification of acceptance, via the online submission system, is sent to the authors. Once accepted, the paper will be handled by HBKU Press for preparation for publication.

Editorial Policy and Publication Ethics

COPE Compliance:

QMJ and HBKU Press are members of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) https://publicationethics.org/about/our-organisation and adhere to its Code of Conduct and its Best Practice Guidelines https://publicationethics.org/core-practices. We also adhere to the international standards in research and publication ethics, and we will not tolerate cases of suspected research and publication misconduct. Authors should comply with these publication ethics and follow the rules related to their field of study (e.g., human participants, animals). More details related to ethical guidelines for experimental research on humans, medical or pharmaceutically related, are on https://www.qscience.com/editorial_policy. Authors who are concerned about the editorial process may refer their concerns to COPE.

Please be aware of the following malpractice points before submitting manuscripts:

Submissions: Papers submitted should not have been published elsewhere (unless published as an abstract or thesis). Papers should not be under consideration by another publication. We take publication ethics very seriously; we check if the paper has been published before.

Plagiarism: Manuscripts upon receipt are checked for plagiarism using specialized software and will be rejected in case of plagiarism. Plagiarism means using another person's ideas, data, images, tables, research processes, results, or words without attributing them to the original author/source and claiming them to be your own materials. So please ensure that all others' work is cited properly, even if citing your own previously published work (Self Citation). If citing your previously published work, there is a limit to the number of sources used. The same applies to re-using tables or images (please cite the source).

Authorship: Should be limited to those who have made a substantial contribution to the manuscript (conception, design of the study, data collection, analysis, and drafting the manuscript or revised it critically for content). The corresponding author should confirm that all co-authors have approved the final version submitted to the journal. Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or supervision of the research group are not enough to justify authorship alone; such contributions should be listed in the acknowledgment section.

Competing Interests: All authors are asked to disclose competing interests at the submission stage. All potential conflicts of interest must be listed in the manuscript. Any personal or financial relationship with an individual or an organization that may influence your interpretation of the results should be disclosed.

Research on Humans and Animals: authors need to comply with the related ethical rules in research. For further details, please refer to the Ethical guidelines section on https://www.qscience.com/editorial_policy.

Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI): We, at QScience, are committed to integrating AI tools responsibly in academic research. Our policy emphasizes the following:

Human Oversight: AI tools can assist in improving readability, language, and research quality, but human oversight and control are essential.
AI tools should not be listed as authors.
Transparency: Authors must disclose the use of AI tools in their manuscripts to ensure transparency and maintain the integrity of the research.
Ethical Practices: We stress the importance of ethical practices, safeguarding intellectual property, and ensuring the originality of the work.
Guidelines and Prohibitions: Clear guidelines are provided on the responsible use of AI, including prohibiting the creation or alteration of images using AI unless part of the research design.

By adhering to these principles, we aim to balance the benefits of AI with the need to maintain high standards of research integrity and ethics.

Research Misconduct and Journal Actions: Research misconduct includes plagiarism, republishing/duplication of a study in another journal, fraud of data, falsifying research records or results, or patients' approval. Any allegations of misconduct should be reported to the Editor in Chief. The allegations will be investigated following COPE guidelines for misconduct (https://publicationethics.org/misconduct). Actions will be as follows, depending on when the misconduct is reported and verified:

Pre-publishing − the manuscript will be rejected.
Post-publishing − the paper will be retracted from the journal website as per our retraction policy section below.

Retraction Policy

The journal follows COPE Retraction Guidelines (https://doi.org/10.24318/cope.2019.1.4); an article can be retracted for any misconduct instances explained above. When retracted, the article webpage will display the article metadata with a note that it has been retracted and why. The PDF version of the article will be marked "retracted" on each page.

Corrections Policy

If an unintended error occurred in a published article, depending on the type of errors and how much the content is affected, the editor, after discussion with the authors, can decide to correct the article. There are 2 types of corrections: 1) errata for errors made by the journal or publisher that do not affect the scientific content of the article (e.g., typographic errors, header wrong number). In such cases, and depending on the error severity, the original PDF will be replaced with an updated version along with a correction notice on the webpage of the paper, stating the errors in the old version and the changes inserted in the new version. The original PDF will be marked with a correction note and an indication of the corrected version of the erratum article. 2) corrigenda, if unintentional errors were made by the authors and affect the scientific integrity of the paper, or changes in authorship. Corrigenda are published as a separate publication and assigned their own DOI.

The decision for issuing errata or corrigenda is with the editors after discussion with the authors.

Authors' Responsibilities

Authors must ensure that:

The paper is original and is their own work. The data presented is real, and the research is conducted and written properly.
The paper has not been previously published or submitted to another journal at the same time.
All authors mentioned have significantly contributed to the work.
Identify and cite any materials taken from other sources, including tables, images, or the author's own previously published work.
Follow any rights regulations: copyright, privacy rights, intellectual rights, and obtain permission to re-use images, data, and tables (when required).
Adhere to all research ethics and guidelines of their disciplines and identify that in the manuscript. If the study involves humans participating, their consent must be obtained.
Acknowledge, in the paper, any conflict of interest (employment, personal financial interest, or others) together with any funding sources for the research.
Participate in the peer review process and respond to all reviewers' comments and revise the manuscript on time.
Report any errors or inaccuracies they discover pre- or post-publication to the editors to provide corrections or retract the paper. Please refer to the retraction and correction policies above.
Agree that the paper will be published as open access under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Reviewers' Responsibilities

Report to editors any conflict of interest before accepting review.
Report any suspected misconduct related to the paper they review.
Be objective in their assessment and provide good quality and constructive feedback for authors to improve the manuscript.
Identify any part in the paper that has been plagiarized or not cited.
Maintain the confidentiality of the review process. Should not use, share, or disclose unpublished information in a manuscript.
Refrain from contacting the authors directly (anyway, it is a blind peer review, and the journal will not reveal the identity of authors to reviewers).
Reply promptly upon receiving a review invitation (whether to accept or decline) to editors.

COPE Guidelines for Reviewers (https://publicationethics.org/files/Ethical_guidelines_for_peer_reviewers_0.pdf)

Editors' Responsibilities

Accept/reject papers based only on the content of manuscripts, regardless of authors' race, gender, or nationality.
Maintain confidentiality about the paper and authors. Not using any part of the content in their own research without the authors' written consent.
Declare any conflict of interest and hand over the manuscript to another editor.
Ensure that each manuscript is reviewed by at least 2 experts in the discipline of the paper.
In case of any misconduct reported, editors will investigate and follow COPE guidelines (https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Flowcharts). Allegations of misconduct by COPE: https://publicationethics.org/misconduct.