Instructions for authors

Pre-submission enquiry

You may send an email directly to the Editorial Office about manuscript suitability or about any other journal matter. Attach a draft of your manuscript or the abstract, if possible. We will normally respond within 48 hours.

Submission checklist

Please submit ALL of these in Manuscript Manager at the same time for successful submission:

1. Cover letter prepared – following our Covering Letter Guidelines (below)
2. Manuscript including figures, tables and supplementary data – prepared following our Manuscript Preparation Guidelines (below)
3. DIC Terms and Conditions of Publication – one copy only from corresponding author on behalf of all the authors (if the form does not download, please contact the Editorial office)
4. DIC Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest form** – one copy for each author

Manuscript preparation guidelines

Please consult The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) document on how to prepare a manuscript for submission. Note that we use iThenticate to check for plagiarism and text recycling. Plagiarism is the representation of another author’s language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions as one’s own original work. Plagiarism is considered a violation of academic integrity and a breach of journalistic ethics. Any articles seen to plagiarize others work will be immediately rejected. Pease note that we follow COPE guidelines to decide on plagiarism and text recycling.

You should submit a well-structured Word document (.doc, .docx) in UK English organized into the following sections:

1. Title page

1. Article type
2. Article title
3. Running head/title – no more than 60 characters
4. List of authors and contributors, and their affiliations. NB. Drugs in Context follows the guidelines of the ICMJE for authorship and contributorship, found here
5. Corresponding author details, including full name, affiliation and email address
6. Trial registration number – if applicable

2. Abstract

An abstract (up to 250 words) is required for Original Research and Review articles. For Original Research articles, use a structured abstract (Background, Methods, Results, Conclusion). You may use an unstructured abstract for a review article. An unstructured abstract up to 100 words is required for Editorial, Case Report/Series and Meeting Report articles.

3. Keywords

Up to 8 MeSH compliant words. Use the MeSH browser.

4. Introduction

Include essential background information and the objectives of your study or review.

5. Methods

Original research: include clear methodology, clear statements about Ethics/Review board approval (name, location, date), signed patient consent, and compliance with relevant Equator Network Guidelines. A trial registration number must be included if it is a clinical intervention trial (ICJME requirements) and please state if the trial has been registered in an appropriate trial database. If unsure of whether a trial needs registering, please consult the ICMJE FAQs for further information.

Retrospective studies: review board approval may not be needed but a statement that this has been checked with the review board and they exempted it should be included.

Case Reports: Case Reports do not need to be approved by a review board. Signed patient consent is not required if the details have been de-identified such that the identity of the patient may not be ascertained in any way. Please state this in the manuscript. If complete de-identification is not feasible, signed consent must be obtained and stated in the manuscript. Please state the use of CARE guidelines for the preparation of Case Reports.

Research studies using human or animal subjects: Trial design, conduct and reporting of results must conform to the WMA Declaration of Helsinki – Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects. Additionally, include a clear description about the choice of statistical methods. Add information about Ethics/Review board approval with name, location and date of approval. For animal studies, add a statement about adequate care of animals. Please follow appropriate guidelines (ARRIVE, PREPARE).

Randomized Trials: report these according to the Consort Statement.

All Review articles: include the scope and methodology of the literature search.

Systematic Reviews: follow the PRISMA 2020 statement. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses are published as ‘Original Research’. Drugs in Context supports the prospective registration of systematic reviews and encourages authors to register their systematic reviews in a suitable registry (such as PROSPERO). Authors who have registered their systematic review should include the registration number as the last line of the manuscript abstract.

6. Results

Please be concise. Use tables and figures if needed for clarification. Clear presentation of statistics.

7. Discussion/Conclusions

Make sure the conclusions are backed up by the research/review. All study or review limitations must be addressed in this section. (Include an abbreviated form of the limitations in your Abstract as well.)

8. Contributions

Describe how the listed authors contributed towards the final manuscript.

9. Disclosure and potential conflicts of interest

This section should contain the same information as in the completed Conflicts of Interest form.

10. Acknowledgments

Include any assistance from medical writers and/or companies here. Additionally, include anyone who provided technical assistance or statistical analysis, took care of the animals, or provided reagents or equipment. Please indicate here if the results of this study were presented in another form such as a poster or abstract or at a symposium.

11. Funding declaration

Please declare if the study was funded and by whom. Please also declare if any funds were provided for medical writing assistance.

12. References

We use AMA style with the addition of DOI numbers – see additional information below.

13. Tables

See additional information below.

14. Figures

See additional information below.

Use of drug names

Replace ™ and ® symbols after proprietary drug names at point of first use in the introduction with asterisk, dagger † and double dagger ‡ marks and insert corresponding footnotes indicating that the drug is a registered trademark giving the manufacturer’s name, city and country. Omit further use of ™ and ® symbols. In the remainder of the manuscript, use generic names in preference to proprietary names. Where the use of proprietary names is necessary to distinguish between formulations, put the proprietary name in brackets after the generic name.

Tense

Research should be reported in the past tense, but conclusions and discussions should be in the present tense.

References – we use AMA reference style

1. We use AMA reference style with the addition of DOI numbers if available. Please check the examples below or look at recent articles on this website or on PubMed Central.
2. Endnote users: please use this Drugs in Contextplug-in to add to the Endnote library. References can then be formatted in our style.
3. Include a complete DOI for each reference. DOIs are often part of an article’s PubMed record or the CrossRef database can be interrogated here: http://www.crossref.org/guestquery/. After a given reference, add the DOI formatted like this: https://doi.org/10.xxxx/xxxxx
4. If necessary, provide URLs for certain references and include a ‘last accessed’ date. Please note that providing a link and a ‘last accessed’ date means that you have checked that the link is live and functioning and that the material found there, at the hyperlink destination, relates to the reference. Referenced material at URLs is often found to be out of date. Please carefully check the material found at the links, especially checking for updates of clinical guidelines etc.
5. Personal communications, papers in preparation, unpublished observations should be referred to in brackets in the text and not listed as references, e.g. …at these conditions the core temperature of the reactor remains stable (A Einstein, personal communication).

Examples

1. Psotka MA, Teerlink JR. Direct myosin activation by omecamtiv mecarbil for heart failure with reduced ejection fraction. Handb Exp Pharmacol. 2017;243:465–490. https://doi.org/10.1007/164_2017_13
2. Packer M, O’Connor C, McMurray JJV, et al. Effect of ularitide on cardiovascular mortality in acute heart failure. N Engl J Med. 2017;376(20):1956–1964. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa1601895
3. Martinod E, Chouahnia K, Radu DM, et al. Feasibility of bioengineered tracheal and bronchial reconstruction using stented aortic matrices.  JAMA. https://doi:10.1001/jama.2018.4653
4. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  Data and statistics: occurrence of Down syndrome in the United States. https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/birthdefects/downsyndrome/data.html. Accessed April 2, 2018.

Figures, Tables and Photos/Images – permissions and additional information

Reuse of material

Authors must obtain permission to use any copyrighted material contained in their manuscript. Add an acknowledgment to any figure or table legend to say that it has been ‘adapted from’ or ‘reproduced with permission’ and cite the original source.

Drugs in Context is a signatory to the Scientific Technical and Medical (STM) Association Publishers’ Permissions Guidelines, which facilitates limited re-use of each other’s copyright material: http://www.stm-assoc.org/permissions-guidelines/ Please check this site for guidance on usage limits and the most recent list of all publishers who are signatories, and whether or not they require formal permission to re-use their material.

Authors must keep electronic copies of all licenses obtained and any related correspondence. Drugs in Context does not require submission of this documentation; however, we ask for confirmation in section 5 of our Terms and Conditions form that any approvals documentation required has been obtained (it is your responsibility to retain this documentation if needed in the future).

Figures

Drugs in Context does not redraw figures to save time and reduce errors. Please submit figures in two file formats:

1. Application format: for example, if the graphic was created in Illustrator, submit the Illustrator file.
2. Jpeg format: export the graphic from the application that was used to create it to provide the graphic as a high-resolution jpeg. High resolution is 300 dpi or more.

Figures should be cited within the text like this (Figure 1). Place all figures together at the end of the text and ensure a caption is provided for each one. Use alphabet letters for symbols. Please explain all non-standard abbreviations in the legend (even if you have explained it in the text).

Tables

Please provide Tables as part of your Word document. Tables should be cited within the text like this (Table 1). Place all tables together at the end of the text and ensure a caption is provided for each one. Use alphabet letters for symbols. Please explain all non-standard abbreviations in a footnote (even if you have explained it in the text).

Photos/Images

Small adjustments to overall brightness, contrast, or colour balance can be made to an image. Do not use photo editing software to enhance, obscure, move, remove or introduce anything in an image (apart from details that may identify a patient). We may ask for original data upon request. Failure to do this may result in the manuscript being rejected for publication.

Supplementary files

Clearly label any extra files and specify what you are sending and why in the covering letter.