Author Submission Requirements and Guidelines
Editorial policy and general information
Research manuscripts must be submitted online through the designated system. Each submission will be evaluated by the Associate Editor and at least two reviewers. The Editor-in-Chief of the Interdisciplinary Journal of Acute Care (IJAC) holds the final responsibility for all editorial decisions. In general, manuscripts submitted to IJAC are expected to be original contributions that have not been previously published or are under consideration elsewhere. The journal accepts original research articles, review papers, short communications, case reports, and letters to the editor. Manuscripts in the following areas will be considered for review:
• Theoretical foundations, professional opinion of acute care
• Innovations and clinical approaches in caring and curing
• Comparative study of caring and curing models
• New strategies in continuing professional development, teaching, and learning
• Ethical issues
• Management, quality assurance, validation, and evaluation methods
• Information and communication technology
• Software used in acute care settings
• Health policy and continual quality improvement.
We may also consider other topics.
Review process
Manuscripts are evaluated on the basis that they present new insight into the investigated topic and are likely to contribute to research progress or a change in clinical practice. It is understood that all authors listed on a manuscript meet the appropriate criteria for authorship. The signature of the corresponding author on the letter of submission, in accordance with ICMJE guidance on authorship, signifies that these conditions have been fulfilled. Received manuscripts will initially be examined by the IJAC editorial office, and those deemed to have insufficient grounds for publication may be rejected without external evaluation. Manuscripts not prepared in the advised style described below will be sent back to the authors for correction. The authors will be notified with a reference number once the manuscript has been assigned to an Editor. The assigned manuscripts will be sent to 2-4 independent experts for scientific evaluation. The evaluation process commonly takes an average of 1-2 months.
Permissions
Authors wishing to include figures, tables, or text that have already been published elsewhere are required to obtain permission from the copyright owner(s) for both the print and online format and to include evidence that such permission has been granted when submitting their papers. Any received material lacking such evidence will be assumed to originate from the authors.
Disclaimer
Every effort is made by the publisher and editorial board to ensure that no inaccurate or misleading data or statements appear in the journal. However, they wish to make it clear that the data and opinions appearing in the articles herein are the responsibility of the authors concerned. Accordingly, the publisher and the editorial board accept no liability whatsoever for the consequences of any inaccurate or misleading data or statements, intentional or not.
Article types
The Interdisciplinary Journal of Acute Care (IJAC) seeks to publish experimental and theoretical research results of outstanding significance in the form of original articles, short communications, reviews, case reports, or letters to the editor.
1. Original articles: Articles that represent in-depth research in various scientific disciplines.
2. Short communications: Should be complete manuscripts of significant importance. However, their length and/or depth do not justify a full-length paper. The total number of figures and tables should not exceed four. The number of words should be less than 3,000.
3. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses: Should normally comprise less than 10,000 words; contain an unstructured abstract and include up-to-date references. Special attention will be paid to the educational value of review papers.
4. Mini reviews: These are reviews of important and recent topics that are presented in a concise and well-focused manner. The number of words is limited to 5,000.
5. Case reports: A detailed report of the symptoms, signs, diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up of an individual patient (i.e., clinically important information on common and rare conditions).
6. Letter to the editor for comments on recently published articles.
7. Special reports: Papers may be accepted on the basis that they provide a systematic, critical, and up-to-date overview of literature pertaining to research or clinical topics.
Ethics in publishing
Please refer to our information pages on Ethics in Publishing and Ethical Guidelines for Journal Publication.
Ethical approval
Studies involving patients or volunteers require Ethics Committee and/or Independent Review Board (IRB) approval, and, where relevant, the patients' written informed consent, which should be documented in the Methods section of the paper. If such a study was not approved by the appropriate Ethics Committee or IRB, a statement as to why it was exempted should be included. The Editors reserve the right to refuse publications where the required ethical approval/patient consent is lacking.
Human and animal rights
The Interdisciplinary Journal of Acute Care (IJAC) editors endorse the principles embodied in the revised Declaration of Helsinki (2008) (59th WMA General Assembly, Seoul, Republic of Korea, October 2008) and expect that all investigations involving humans would have been performed in accordance with these principles. For animal experimentation, it is expected that investigators have abided by the Interdisciplinary Principles and Guidelines for the Use of Animals in Research, Testing, and Education issued by the New York Academy of Sciences Ad Hoc Committee on Animal Research. All human and animal studies must have been approved by the investigator's Institutional Review Board.
- For studies involving human subjects, download the letter from here
- For studies involving animals (fisheries), download the letter from here
- For studies that do not involve human or animal subjects (Basic sciences), download the letter from here
Conflict of Interest (mandatory)
A conflict of interest may exist when an author or the author's institution has financial or other affiliations with people or organizations that may inappropriately influence the author's work. A conflict can be actual or potential, and full disclosure to the journal is the safest course. All submissions to the journal must include disclosure of any relationships that could be viewed as potential conflicts of interest. The journal may use such information as a basis for editorial decisions and may publish such disclosures if they are believed to be important to readers in judging the manuscript. This declaration (with the heading "Conflict of interests") must be included on the title page. Additional information regarding conflicts of interest can be found here.
Submission declaration and verification
Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis or as an electronic preprint, see 'Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication' section of our ethics policy for more information), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, including electronically without the written consent of the copyright-holder. To verify originality, your article may be checked by the originality detection service Crossref Similarity Check.
Changes to authorship
Request for changes in authorship is not allowed once the paper is accepted. In case any such changes need to be made, then the author would have to withdraw his paper and resubmit it with the new author details in the Editorial System.
Role of the funding source
Please list the source(s) of funding for the study, for each author, and for the manuscript preparation in the acknowledgements section. List all contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship, such as technical assistants, writing assistants, or the head of the department who provided only general support. Financial and other material support should be disclosed and acknowledged.
Compliance with funder-mandated open access policies
An author whose work is funded by an organization that mandates the use of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license is able to meet that requirement through the available open access license for approved funders. Information about the approved funders can be found here.
FAQ for open access can be found here
Access Rights
All articles published with open access will be immediately and permanently free for everyone to read, download, copy, and distribute.
User Rights
Permitted reuse is defined by the following user license:
Author Rights
The copyright of articles accepted for publication rests with the author(s). Author(s) retain copyright to their work without restrictions. The author(s) has complete control over the work (e.g., retains the right to reuse, distribute, republish, etc.).
Language
Manuscripts must be written in English in a clear and concise manner. Any author who is not fluent in idiomatic English is urged to seek assistance with manuscript preparation prior to submission. Reviewers are not expected to correct grammatical errors, and any deficiency in this area may detract from the scientific content of the paper and result in acceptance delays or rejection
Submission
Our online submission system guides you stepwise through the process of entering your article details and uploading your files. The system converts your manuscript files to a single PDF file used in the peer-review process. Editable files are required to typeset your article for final publication. All correspondence, including notification of the Editor's decision and requests for revision, is sent by e-mail.
Submit your article
Please submit your article here.
You will be able to track the progress of your manuscript through the system. If you experience any problems, please contact i.j.acutecare@lums.ac.ir, Phone: 276 944-6494.
General information
The original manuscript should be formatted with double line spacing using Times New Roman fonts (12 pt). The text must be in a single-column format with justified margins. Use boldface, italics, subscripts, and superscripts where appropriate. To avoid unnecessary errors, the authors are strongly advised to use the "spell-check" and "grammar-check" functions of their word processing software. Use continuous line numbering throughout the text, and all manuscript pages must be numbered at the bottom right corner of each page.
IJAC requires "people-first" language. Subjects/patients should not be labelled by a disability, medical condition, diagnosis, etc. Terms such as "total knee patients," "diabetics," and so forth are not acceptable. "Patients receiving TKA" or "patients with diabetes" are acceptable phrases. Any terminology that dehumanizes the people described in the manuscript should not be used.
Revised manuscripts
The authors must submit the revised version of their submissions within one month of receiving the editorial decision. Revision does not mean that the manuscript will be accepted for publication, as the amended submissions could be sent out for re-evaluation. In response to reviewers’ comments, the authors must ensure that each comment is followed by their revision and/or response. In instances where an author disagrees with a comment or suggestion of a reviewer, please justify the reason. Any associated changes in the manuscript must be highlighted on the revised form of the manuscript to facilitate the process of re-evaluation.
Resubmission of a rejected manuscript
When resubmitting a manuscript previously rejected by IJAC, the authors are required to upload the decision letter from the Editor requesting submission of the rejected manuscript, the original reviewer comments of the rejected manuscript, the responses to the reviewer comments, and the original manuscript number. The resubmitted manuscript must indicate, in color, where the revisions were made in the paper in response to the reviewer comments
Article structure
Subdivision
Authors are urged to be succinct; long papers with many tables and figures may require reductions prior to being processed or accepted for publication. Although there is no absolute length restriction for original papers, authors are encouraged to limit the text to 5,000 words (including references) and references to up to 40.
The manuscript should be compiled in the following order:
1. Title page
2. Abstract, Keywords
3. Introduction
4. Materials and methods
5. Results
6. Discussion
7. Conclusion
8. Acknowledgment(s)
9. References
10. Tables
11. Figures.
Introduction
The author(s) should strive to define the significance of the work and the justification for its publication. Introduction providing the rationale for the study, which generally takes the form of identifying the status quo, identifying a conflict, and generating a hypothesis
Material and methods
Methods include the number of subjects, rationale for the sample size, how subjects are assigned to groups, research design, methodology, and statistical analysis. Statements regarding the protection of subjects should be placed in this section. For statistical analysis, please state the appropriate test(s) in addition to the hypothesized p-value or significant level (for example, 0.05).
Protection of participants
The name of the Institutional Review Board or Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee that approved the research protocol must be included in the published Methods section of the manuscript. Blind the name of the IRB or IACUC in the submitted version. Affiliations and other masked information will be placed into the manuscript during the layout process.
Results
The study results should be clear and concise. Summary data should be reported as mean (SD) or median (range) as appropriate based on the type of data. Do not use ± within the text or tables. Restrict the use of tables and figures to depict data that is essential to the message and interpretation of the study. Do not duplicate data in both figures and tables. The results should be presented in a logical sequence in the text, tables, and illustrations.
Discussion
This should explore the significance of the results of the work, not repeat them. Include in the discussion the implications of the findings and their limitations, how the findings fit into the context of other relevant work, and directions for future research. Clinical relevance should be the major emphasis of this section.
Conclusion
The main conclusion(s) of the study should be presented in a short conclusion statement that can stand alone and be linked with the goals of the study. State new hypotheses when warranted. Include recommendations when appropriate. Unqualified statements and conclusions not completely supported by the obtained data should be avoided.
Essential title page information
The title page should include the following:
1. Title: The title should be brief, concise, and descriptive. It should not contain any literature references or compound numbers or non-standardized abbreviations.
2. Authors and affiliations: Supply given names, middle initials, and family names for complete identification. Use superscript lowercase letters to indicate different affiliations, which should be as detailed as possible and must include department, faculty/college, University, city with zip code or P.O. Box, and country.
3. Corresponding author: Should be indicated with an asterisk, and contact details (Tel., fax, and e-mail address) should be placed in a footnote.
Short running title (running head) with 80 characters as maximum.
The Manuscript text should include the following:
Abstract
Provide an unstructured abstract of no more than 250 words. The abstract should briefly describe the purpose of the study, how the investigation was performed, the most important results, and the principal conclusions that were drawn from the results, respectively. References should be avoided. Non-standard or uncommon abbreviations should be avoided, but if essential, be defined at first mention within the abstract.
Keywords
Authors are asked to provide (4 to 6) keywords, separated with semicolons. These keywords are used for indexing purposes
Acknowledgements
Please acknowledge individuals/companies/institutions who have contributed to the study, as well as entities providing financial support. All funding sources supporting the work must be acknowledged on the title page, which is blinded from reviewers.
Nomenclature and Units
All measurements and data should be given in SI units where possible, or in other internationally accepted units in parentheses throughout the text. Figures and Tables should use conventional units, with conversion factors given in legends or footnotes.
The preferred forms for some of the more commonly used abbreviations are mp, bp, °C, K, min, h, mL, &mgr;L, g, mg, &mgr;g, cm, mm, nm, mol, mmol, &mgr; mol, M, mM, &mgr; M, ppm, HPLC, TLC, GC, 1H NMR, GC-MS, HRMS, FABHRMS, UV, IR, EPR, ESR, DNase, ED50, ID50, IC50, LD50, im, ip, iv, mRNA, RNase, rRNA, tRNA, cpm, Ci, dpm, Vmax, Km, k, t1/2.
All non-standard abbreviations should be defined following the first use of the abbreviation.
Illustrations
The number of illustrations should be
Tables
There should be a maximum of 5 tables, and these should include only essential data. They should be uploaded on separate sheets with their legends.
References
Text: Indicate references by Arabic numerals in brackets, which run in order of appearance throughout the text (Vancouver style). For instance [4] or [7-10, 13,15]. The actual authors can be referred to, but the reference number(s) must always be given.
List: Number the references (e.g., 1.) in the list in the order in which they appear in the text. Journal names should be abbreviated according to Index Medicus journal abbreviations.
Examples of references (if 6 or fewer authors, list all; if 7 or more, list first 6 and add "et al."):
- For journal articles
Abd El-Aty AM, Goudah A, Zhou HH. Pharmacokinetics of doxycycline after administration as a single intravenous bolus and intramuscular doses to non-lactating Egyptian goats. Pharmacol Res. 2004; 49(5): 487-91.
Kramarz P, DeStefano F, Gargiullo PM, Chen RT, Lieu TA, Davis RL, et al. Does influenza vaccination prevent asthma exacerbations in children? J Pediatr 2001; 138:306-10.
- For articles in press (online)
Hellems MA, Gurka KK, Hayden GF. A review of The Journal of Pediatrics: The first 75 years. J Pediatr (2008). doi:10.1016/j.jpeds.2008.08.049.
- For Books
Rosenstein BJ, Fosarelli PD. Pediatric pearls: the handbook of practical pediatrics. 3rd ed. St Louis: Mosby; 1997.Virginia Law Foundation. The medical and legal implications of AIDS. Charlottesville (VA): The Foundation; 1987.
- For book chapters
Neufeld EF, Muenzer J. The mucopolysaccharidoses. In: Scriver CR, Beaudet AL, Sly WS, et al, eds. The metabolic and molecular bases of inherited diseases. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001. p. 3421-52.
Web References
- For websites
American Medical Association [homepage on the Internet]. Chicago: The Association; c1995-2002 [updated 2025 June 20; cited 2025 Aug 12]. AMA Office of Group Practice Liaison; [about 2 screens]. Available from: https://code-medical-ethics.ama-assn.org/
For more samples, please check here and here.
These items should be uploaded in the following order:
1. Cover letter (mandatory) Please upload the completed customized cover letter, which can be downloaded here.
2. Title page: Because manuscripts undergo a blind review process, all author names, affiliations, and any other potentially identifying information are to be placed only on the title page, which will be masked from the reviewers. Mention of authors or their affiliations within the manuscript must be blinded by the author.
3. Main document, which includes the title page, text, references, tables, and figures (mandatory)
4. Conflict of Interest (mandatory)
5. Compliance with Ethics Requirement (mandatory)
6. Graphical abstract (mandatory for review article): A Graphical Abstract is a single, concise, pictorial, and visual summary of the main findings of the article. This could either be the concluding figure from the article or a figure that is specially designed for the purpose, which captures the content of the article for readers at a single glance. The Graphical Abstract will be displayed in the online contents list and the online article.
Submission Checklist
The following list will be useful during the final checking of an article prior to sending it to the journal for review. Please consult this Guide for Authors for further details of any item. Ensure that the following items are present:
One author has been designated as the corresponding author with contact details:
1. E-mail address
2. Phone number(s).
All necessary files have been uploaded, and include:
1. Keywords
2. All figure captions
3. All tables (including title, description, and footnotes).
Further considerations
1. Manuscript has been 'spell-checked' and 'grammar-checked'
2. References are in the correct format for this journal
3. All references mentioned in the Reference list are cited in the text, and vice versa
4. Permission has been obtained for use of copyrighted material from other sources (including the Web).
Availability of the accepted article
This journal makes articles available online as soon as possible after acceptance. This concerns the accepted article (both in HTML and PDF format), which has not yet been copyedited, typeset, or proofread. A Digital Object Identifier (DOI) is allocated, thereby making it fully citable and searchable by title, author name(s), and the full text. The article's PDF also carries a disclaimer stating that it is an unedited article. Subsequent production stages will simply replace this version.
Copyright and License
The Interdisciplinary Journal of Acute Care (IJAC) is a fully open-access journal, which means that all articles are available on the Web to all users immediately upon publication. All articles are published under a Creative Commons License. Therefore, the copyright of articles accepted for publication rests with the author(s). Author(s) retain copyright to their work without restrictions. The author(s) has complete control over the work (e.g., retains the right to reuse, distribute, republish, etc.).
All content of the Journal is published with open access under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0), which allows users to copy, adapt, and redistribute the article under the following conditions:
Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format for any purpose, even commercially.
Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially.
The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms. Under the following terms:
Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
Open Access Policy
The Interdisciplinary Journal of Acute Care (IJAC) provides immediate open access to its content. Our publisher, Lorestan University of Medical Sciences, abides by the Budapest Open Access Initiative definition of Open Access:
“By “open access” to [peer-reviewed research literature], we mean its free availability on the public Internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this domain, should be to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited.”
Researchers engage in discovery for the public good, yet because of cost barriers or use restrictions imposed by other publishers, research results are not available to the full community of potential users. It is our mission to support a greater global exchange of knowledge by making the research published in this journal open to the public and reusable under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license. Furthermore, we encourage authors to post their pre-publication manuscripts in institutional repositories or on their websites before and during the submission process and to post the Publisher’s final formatted PDF version after publication. These practices benefit authors with productive exchanges as well as earlier and greater citations of published work. This journal is a fully open-access journal, which means that all articles are available on the Internet to all users immediately upon publication. The Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) allows users to copy, adapt, and redistribute the article under the following conditions:
Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format for any purpose, even commercially.
Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially.
The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms. Under the following terms:
Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
Benefits of open access for authors include:
- Authors retain copyright to their work.
- Free access for all users worldwide.
- Increased visibility and readership.
- No spatial constraints.
- Rapid publication.
Other benefits of open access for authors:
- Fast Publishing: Minimize authors’ long waiting time as open-access publishes accepted articles immediately online. All research articles published in this journal are immediately freely available to read, download, and share.
- High Availability: Manuscripts are available on all search engines and indexing databases, especially Google Scholar, Semantic Scholar, Microsoft Academic, etc.
- High Publicity: Authors get publicity, acceptance, and recognition in the scientific world.
- Maximize the Citation: Authors get frequent citations in others’ articles.
- Minimizing the Cost: It allows only one-time payment for the processing of accepted manuscripts and ensures lifetime online availability.
- Recognition and Acceptance of Research Work: The authors’ research gets full recognition among the intellectual community without any constraints.