Instructions for authors

General information
“Pediatric Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism” is a quarterly journal, i.e. it is issued four times a year in the paper form (original version). Full texts are available online at: www.pediatricendocrinology.pl

The “Pediatric Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism” (Pediatr. Endocrinol. Diabetes Metab.) journal publishes papers on all aspects in the fields of pediatrics, endocrinology, diabetology and metabolic diseases:

– editorials,

– original papers (clinical, laboratory and experimental),

– educational material – standards, schemes, case studies,

– review papers,

– overview papers,

– letters to the Editor,

– reports of meetings,

– reviews of the literature,

– announcements.

The Editors accept articles only in English.

Manuscripts should be submitted online only using the dedicated Editorial System at www.editorialsystem.com/pedm

These instructions are based on the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals: Writing and Editing for Biomedical Publication. (Updated April 2010)

Editorial policy

Authorship

Authorship should be based upon the following criteria:

1) substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work, and

2) drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content, and

3) final approval of the version to be published.

Authors should meet all three criteria and when a large multi-author group has conducted the work, the group ideally should decide who will take direct responsibility for the work.

The author submitting the manuscript should clearly determine the preferred sequence of Authors, all individual Authors making up a specific group and its name. The Authors of a multi-author work should agree on the order in which their names will be listed in the manuscript. All persons identified as Authors should qualify for authorship and those who do not qualify, should be acknowledged. Each Author should be involved in the work so that he can take public responsibility for the appropriate parts of the work and for the conflict of interest. All collaborators who do not meet the authorship criteria should be acknowledged upon their written consent.

Prevention of scientific misconduct
To prevent ghost-writing and guest authorship, the submitting author (named as the corresponding author) should provide all information on behalf of the other authors during manuscript submitting via the Editorial System and specify contributions of individual authors to manuscript drafting.

When a manuscript is submitted, authors accept that the manuscript can be checked by the international plagiarism detection system. All detected cases of scientific misconduct will be revealed and relevant institutions will be notified.

As part of the editorial process, all the submitted manuscripts are screened for plagiarism.

Duplicate publication, occurs when an author reuses substantial parts of his or her own published work, or another author, without providing the appropriate references.

The manuscripts in which the plagiarism is detected are subject to additional individual assessment based on a professional report from iThenticate.

Reviews

When submitting manuscripts for publication authors consent to the peer-review process. Manuscripts are first assessed by the Editors and then by at least two independent external peer reviewers. The peer review process is a double-blinded one. Reviewers must not use their knowledge on the topic of the work before it is published. The entire editorial process from the manuscript submitting via the Editorial System to the final decision on the manuscript (whether it is accepted or rejected) is handled using the Editorial System. The manuscript author is notified by email about subsequent stages of the editorial process. The final decision on the manuscript is made by the Editor-in-Chief.

When receiving an invitation to peer review the manuscript, reviewers must disclose all relationships that could provide the basis for a suspected conflict of interest. The information sent to the Editor-in-Chief should also disclose all relationships with commercial firms related to the medical devices/medicinal products presented in the journal.

Conflict of interest
When submitting manuscripts via the Editorial System, the authors must disclose all conflicts of interest (that may affect the value of work):

• financial relationships (such as employment, consultancies, stock ownership or options, honoraria and paid expert testimony),

• personal relationships,

• academic and other competition, which according to the Editors or Readers may affect the merit-related aspect of the manuscript;

• the role of the sponsor of the research, in full or in part, (if any) in the design, acquisition, analysis and interpretation of the data, in the drafting the report, in the decision to submit the manuscript.

Protection of participants’ data
Authors of scientific works are obliged to protect personal data of patients. Data of informational or clinical significance should be published only. Details about the race, ethnic or cultural origin and religion of the participant should be given only if according to the Author they may affect the course of the disease and/or treatment. If disclosure of identifiable information concerning the patient cannot be avoided, written informed consent of the patient (or the patient’s legal custodians) to data publication, especially photographs of the face etc. should be obtained, which should be recorded in the publication. Authors should inform patients whether potentially recognizable material can be available on the Internet following publication.

A declaration by the authors that they have informed consent from research participants and, in the case of potentially vulnerable groups, such as children, older people or adults with learning disabilities, that they have informed consent from their guardians or legal representatives, should be included in this section. Materials and Methods of the prepared manuscript.

Ethical requirements
Experimental works involving people must be performed in line with requirements of the Helsinki Declaration, which must be noted in the methods description. Authors must obtain approval of the Local Ethics Committees for scientific research on human subjects. Experiments on animals must also obtain approval of the appropriate committee, which should be supported by the Authors’ statement contained in the cover letter attached to the manuscript submitted for publication.

Clinical trials

Pediatric Endocrinology Diabetes and Metabolism is published in accordance with ICMJE policies and recommendations. The ICMJE requires - and recommends that all medical journal editors require - registration of clinical trials in a public trials registry at or before the time of first patient enrollment as a condition of consideration for article publication.

The ICMJE defines a clinical trial as any research project that prospectively assigns people or a group of people to an intervention, with or without concurrent comparison or control groups, to study the relationship between a health-related intervention and a health outcome. Health-related interventions are those used to modify a biomedical or health-related outcome; examples include drugs, surgical procedures, devices, behavioural treatments, educational programs, dietary interventions, quality improvement interventions, and process-of-care changes. Health outcomes are any biomedical or health-related measures obtained in patients or participants, including pharmacokinetic measures and adverse events.

The ICMJE accepts publicly accessible registration in any registry that is a primary register of the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) that includes the minimum acceptable 24-item trial registration data set or in ClinicalTrials.gov, which is a data provider to the WHO ICTRP.

In accordance with the ICMJE recommendations, the Editors of Pediatric Endocrinology Diabetes and Metabolism require authors to provide all necessary information regarding the registered study when submitting the article for publication: name of the register, Main ID, Public Title, Date of Registration. The data provided by the author are verified by the editors.

More information on this can be found here https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/publishing-and-editorial-issues/clinical-trial-registration.html

Source: ICMJE, Clinical Trials, https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/publishing-and-editorial-issues/clinical-trial-registration.html

A work reporting results of clinical trials can be accepted only if the registration number in the relevant central register of clinical trials is given – in Poland: CEBK (Centralna Ewidencja Badań Klinicznych/Central Register of Clinical Trials).

Civil liability
Editors are committed to take care of the merits-related aspect of the journal but it is the Author that is solely responsible for the article and the sponsor or marketing firm that is responsible for the advertisements. Neither the Publisher nor the Editors are responsible for effects of any negligence.

Copyrights
The Publisher acquires exclusively all copyrights to manuscripts printed (including the right to issue in print, on electronic media, CDs etc. and online). Authors are not paid any fees in this respect. After the journal is printed, the corresponding author will receive one copy of the journal with his article. Articles published are made available online under the Creative Commons license Uznanie autorstwa-Użycie niekomercyjne-Na tych samych warunkach 4.0 (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ ). That way third parties may copy and disseminate the material on any media or format and transform and utilize the material if the original work is duly cited and complies with the terms of license.

Specific information

Submitting the manuscripts
Works for publication in the journal should be sent in an electronic form using the dedicated Editorial System – www.editorialsystem.com/pedm The manuscript submitting means that the manuscript was not published or submitted before in other journals. This also means that all Authors consent to its publication and state that they had full access to all data in the research and take full responsibility for the entirety of the data and accuracy of the analysis of the data. The Author(s) submit such statements together with the manuscript using the Editorial System. For reasons important to the Readers, already published manuscripts can be printed.

Manuscript preparation
1. Original and review papers should have not more than 12 pages, and case reports – 5 pages including references, figures, tables and abstracts (standard page of 1800 characters).

2. Manuscripts should be in A4 format, 1.5 space, font size 12 points (e.g. Arial). Margins on the left-hand and right-hand side should be 1 cm and 4 cm, respectively.

3. Suggested highlights should be bolded.

4. The text should clearly show references to tables and figures.

5. The title page should contain:

• title of the work in Polish and English,

• abbreviated title in Polish and English,

• full name of the Author(s). For manuscripts prepared in several centers, Authors should be ascribed to centers they come from,

• full name of the center(s) the work originates from (official name),

• correspondence address of the Author in charge, including the scientific title, full name of the author, full address, telephone and fax numbers, email address. At the same time the Author consents to publication of the above information,

• key words in Polish and English (not more than 5), as per the current Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) (www.nmh.nih.gov/mesh),

• information about funding sources (grant, sponsor etc.), acknowledgments; alternatively, the conference at which the work was presented should be given here, and the patient’s consent to his image publication. Authors should also state whether they used help of others when drafting the article and inform about sources of funding on such help.

6. A separate form to be attached to the manuscript submitted should describe all potential conflicts of interest.

7. Another form should specify the contribution of individual authors to the article.

Abstract and key words
The article should be accompanied by an abstract in Poland and English. Abstracts for original papers, editorials and review works in Polish and English should contain not more than 250 words and must be divided to five sections as follows: Introduction, Purpose, Material and methods, Results, and Conclusions. All abbreviations used in the abstract must be explained. Abstracts for case reports should contain 50 to 150 words. The abstract should be followed by not more than 5 key words in Polish and English in accordance with the current Medical Subject Headings (MeSH). If proper MeSH terms for recently introduced notions are not available yet, generally used terms can be used.

Work layout
The layout should contain the following sections: Introduction, Purpose, Material and methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions, References, Tables, Figure legend (in one text file) and Figures (one file for each).

Tables

Tables should be attached in separate files. Titles and contents of tables should be prepared in Polish and English (Polish and English descriptions should be provided in one table). All abbreviations used must be explained underneath the table. Tables should be numbered using Roman numerals.

Figures

Graphics or photographs (in printable resolution of 300 dpi) should represent separate sets – recommended formats: *.PNG, *.GIF, *.TIF, *.JPG. For diagrams, Microsoft Excel is recommended. Titles and descriptions in the figures should be given in Polish and English. All abbreviations used must be explained underneath the figure. Figures should be numbered using Arabic numerals. Titles should be also given at the end of the body of the text. The diagrams should be accompanied by a specification of data. The Publisher reserves the right to create diagrams based on data attached.

Units of measurements
Measurements of length, height, weight, and volume should be reported in metric units (meter, kilogram, or liter) or their decimal multiples. Temperatures should be in degrees Celsius. Other laboratory information should be reported in International System of Units (SI).

Abbreviations and symbols
Standard abbreviations and symbols should be used. The spelled-out abbreviation or symbol should be used when first mentioned in the text.

References
References should be arranged in the order they are mentioned in the article, tables and figures (for references cited in tables and figures, the sequence compliant with the first reference to the table or figure in the text applies). In original works, editorials and review papers, there should be not more than 30 references, for case reports – 10. References should contain only published works compliant with the Vancouver convention/ICMJE, used e.g. by MEDLINE:

http://www.lib.monash.edu.au/tutorials/citing/vancouver.html.

The bibliography for the journal article should contain the author’s surname and initials without full stops (if there are more than four authors, the names of the first three are to be given, followed by “et al.”. for papers in English and “i wsp.” for papers in Polish), title of the paper, abbreviated journal title (without full stops as per Index Medicus available at ftp://nlmpubs.nlm.nih.gov/online/journals/ljiweb.pdf/, year of publication, and following a semicolon, number of the volume (annual volume; without the issue date for journals with continuous pagination) and following a colon, start and end pages of the article. The sections of authors’ surnames, title of the paper, and journal title are separated by full stops, for example:

• Nettis E, Colanardi MC, Barra L, et al. Levocetirizine in the treatment of chronic idiopathic urticaria: a randomized, double-blind, placebocontrolled study. Br J Dermatol. 2006;154:533-538.

The bibliography for non-serial publications (books) should contain: the author(s)’ surname(s) and initials without full stops (if there are more than four authors, the names of the first three are to be given, followed by “et al.”. for papers in English and “i wsp.” for papers in Polish), title; following a full stop – number of the book edition (ed., not applicable for the first edition), place and name of the publisher and year of publication. For edited collections, the surname(s) of the Editor(s) is (are) followed by “red.” for papers in Polish and “ed.(s)” for papers in English):

• Iverson C, Flanagin A, Fontanarosa PB, i wsp. American Medical Association manual of style. 9 ed. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins; 1998.

When citing a chapter of the book, the bibliography should contain: the author(s)’ surname(s) and initials without full stops (if there are more than four authors, the names of the first three are to be given, followed by “et al.”. for papers in English and “i wsp.” for papers in Polish), title of the chapter, followed by “In:” surname(s) of the author(s) or editor(s) and initials, book title; followed by a full stop and number of the book edition (ed., not applicable for the first edition), place and name of the publisher and year of publication and the start and end pages with “p.” at the beginning:

• Lesiak A, Narbut J. Rumienie – co nowego. W: Szepietowski J, Reich A, red. Dermatologia – co nowego. Wrocław: Cornetis; 2011. p.37-39.

Electronic material (Internet): Internet sources should always contain the date of access.

• Kmieć ML, Broniarczyk-Dyła G. Aspekty psychologiczne związane z atopowym zapaleniem skóry.

http://www.cornetis.com.pl/artykul.php?issn=1730-7201&rok=2009&numer=4&str_p=237 (as at 29.04.2010).

References to online publications can be given only if no adequate data in print literature are available. Punctuation rules must be strictly followed as per the above.

Correspondence, letters to the Editors
Correspondence/Commentaries on articles published should be submitted to the Editorial office within not more than 30 days after the article publication. In all cases, correspondence/commentaries should not contain insulting, inaccurate, or defamatory language, they should not contain argumentum ad hominem either, which are aimed to discredit opinions or results. The journal will include only merit-related letters, scientific reports, discussions etc.

Publication charge
Authors, who are not members of Polish Society of Pediatric Endocrinology and Diabetes, are obliged to pay for the publication of an article. The payment is 1000 PLN for authors from Poland; 240 EUR for foreign authors).

We send invoice for payment after articles are accepted for publication.