INSTRUCTIONS FOR AUTHORS

Nigerian Journal of Health Sciences and Technology (NJHST) is an open access, peer-reviewed journal that considers high quality research papers in the areas of Medical and Allied Health Sciences. In addition, the NJHST publishes case studies, reviews as well as letters to the editor. Ethical committee must approve research protocols for clinical studies which must be in line with international agreements (Helsinki Declaration of 1975, revised 2002) and also a guide for the care and use of laboratory animals for experimental studies. Authors’ contributions as well as responsibilities must be well stated and acknowledge the firms, foundations that provided grants in support of the study.


1. Original articles
2. Letters to the editor
3. Case reports
4. Reviews


Authors must prepare the manuscripts in accordance with the most recent uniform requirements for biomedical journals. The manuscript file which should be submitted online, must be in Microsoft Word format. The manuscript should begin with the title page and the pages must be numbered sequentially; the pages should be justified. Line numbers should be used for ease of comments. The following manuscript sections should be included in the manuscript file: (i) title page (ii) abstract with the keywords, (iii) text (iv) acknowledgments (v) references (vi) tables (vii) figures.


Original research articles should include the following; (i) structured abstract (ii) introduction (iii) materials and methods (iv) results (v) discussion (vi) references (vii) tables (viii) figures. The manuscript should not be longer than 350 words for abstract and not more than 4500 words for the content, with about 40 references.

The case reports should not be more than 2300-word count, and should include at least two tables or illustrations. An unstructured abstract, and at least ten references should be included. The structure of a case report should be; (i) unstructured abstract (ii) introduction (iii) case report (iv) discussion (v) references (vi) tables (vii) figures (where applicable). Authors need to indicate whether or not they have obtained patient consent.

Review articles are accepted for submission by authors. Review articles should include the following; (i) structured abstract (ii) introduction (iii) methods (iv) results (v) discussion (vi) conclusion (vii) references (viii) tables (ix) figures. The manuscript should not be longer than 300 words for abstract and not more than 4000 words for the content, with about 70 references.

MANUSCRIPT FORMAT

The manuscript format must be presented in the following order:

  1. Title page
  2. Objective (ii) Materials and Methods (iii) Results (iv) Conclusion (v) Keywords (4 to 6)
  3. Main text (insert tables where cited in the text; images must be uploaded as separate files) (i) Introduction (ii) Materials and Methods (iii) Results (iv) Discussion (v) Conclusion
  4. Acknowledgment, Competing Interests, and Funding must be well stated accordingly.
  5. References

The manuscript title should be concise and informative enough and it must be less than 150 characters. Include a list of all authors who has contributed meaningfully well and their respective affiliations. In addition, provide a complete contact information for the corresponding author; including phone and an active e-mail address.

Give the manuscript a short title (limited to 80 characters).

  1. Each author’s full name
  2. Names of departments and institutions where each individual author completed work (use alphabets to link authors to affiliations)
  3. Financial assistance in the form of grants, equipment, or drugs
  4. The name of one author designated as the corresponding author, along with a complete postal address, telephone number, and e-mail address

An abstract of 350 words or less must be included and it should be understandable enough without referring to the text.

The abstract must contain four distinct, structured paragraphs; (i) Objective (ii) Materials and Methods (iii) Results (iv) Conclusion. These must correspond to the research question, materials and methods, results, and the answer to the question. Before the question, one or two sentences with little background information may be included where necessary. The question and answer should match those in the text. Include only a few keywords and avoid the use of abbreviations or statistics. In stating the study’s objectives, (subjects of study/experimental animals; observational and analytic methods), main findings (specific data and statistical significance), and conclusions must highlight novel and significant aspects of the research work.

  1. A list of four to six keywords should be included. Keywords should be listed completely, with no abbreviations. MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) terms, the controlled vocabulary used by Pub-Med, are the best way to express keywords.
  2. The content as well as the style may take this form; Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion are common sections of original and experimental articles. Other types of articles, such as case studies and reviews, may take or require a slight different formats as stated above.

Here, the question been posed should be well stated (or the hypothesis to be tested) and the factors that led to the formulation of the question should be well presented. Only relevant references should be cited in this section. In addition, an introduction section should also be included in case reports.

  1. Human and animal subject protection (Animals or study subjects);
  2. Clearly describe how the subjects or experimental animals, including the control subjects, were identified (if utilized).
  3. State clearly the eligibility criteria for cases and controls in observational studies.
  • All research works involving human subjects are expected to have been approved by local ethical committees as well as the necessary regulatory authorities where applicable.
  1. Animal experiments must be carried out in accordance of use and care of animals.
  2. The editors reserve the right to reject work that does not meet acceptable ethical standards.
  3. Informed Consent: Research Manuscripts should state formally that studies were conducted in accordance with the authors’ institutions’ human-studies guidelines or animal-welfare regulations.
  4. Informed Consent: Privacy and Confidentiality of Patients If it is not absolutely necessary, identifying information should be removed.
  5. Counting: When possible, provide exact numbers; for example, 10 of 100 patients (10 %) is preferable to simply stating the percentage. Do not spell out numbers except at the beginning of a sentence.
  6. Summarize but do not repeat data from tables and figures in the text.
  7. Avoid abbreviations in the title and abstract. Also, keep abbreviations to a minimum throughout the paper. Unless it is a standard unit of measurement, the full term should come before the first use of an abbreviation in the text.