Instructions for authors

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SUBMISSION OF MANUSCRIPTS
Articles for publication in Health Psychology Report are accepted only via the electronic Editorial System.

REVIEW PROCESS
Manuscripts submitted to the editorial office are assessed by reviewers. The rules of review are in conformity with the guidelines of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education (www.nauka.gov.pl). The editorial office chooses a reviewer based on the subject of the submitted manuscript. The competences of a reviewer are confirmed by the academic achievements. The reviewer is independent of the author of the reviewed manuscript and the editorial office of the journal. Each paper is evaluated in the double-blind review process, in which authors do not know the identity of their reviewers, nor do the reviewers know the identities of the authors. Reviewers assess the work using the electronic system on the basis of questions prepared for a specific title. Reviewers may also provide individual comments on the article.
The recommendations of the reviewers are presented to the author in writing. The review procedure respects the principle of confidentiality.

Research and review submissions from the Editor-in-Chief and other journal staff members are processed by the Associate Editors who declare no conflicts of interest in the journal's online submission system. The Editor-in-Chief does not have access to their own submissions and cannot influence the selection of peer reviewers.

Manuscripts published in special and thematic issues undergo the same review and acceptance process as manuscripts published in regular issues. The Editors of a given issue are responsible for carrying out this process.

MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION
Submissions should be written in English (Times New Roman, 12 pt, double-spaced) and follow APA-7 style guidelines (including text citations and reference list): http://www.apastyle.org/
The title page should provide: full names of all authors, affiliations of the authors, manuscript full title, running title, complete address for correspondence with e-mail to speed up contacts with authors, and source(s) of support in the form of grants (quote the number of the grant).

Scope of work of authors
Authors are required to include information of responsibility in the manuscript that specifies the contribution of every author. According to ICMJE (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors) guidelines each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content. Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group, alone, does not justify authorship.
We suggest the following kind of format (please use initials to refer to each author’s contribution):
A – Study design
B – Data collection
C – Statistical analysis
D – Data interpretation
E – Manuscript preparation
F – Literature search
G – Funds collection

All cases of ghostwriting and guest authorship will be liable for customary penalty as an indication of scientific negligence.

The authors should give 3-5 key words, which as a general rule should not be terms that occur in the title of the paper.

Footnotes are not used. If necessary, please use endnotes numbered consistently throughout the text. Manuscripts should be in their final form when submitted.

Original articles should be about 7500 words, that is 20 typewritten A4 pages. Each research article should contain a structured abstract (200-250 words), divided into Background, Participants and Procedure, Results, and Conclusions. Subject matter should be organized under suitable headings and subheadings such as: Structured Abstract, Introduction, Participants and Procedure, Results, Discussion, Conclusions, Acknowledgments and References.

Health Psychology Report (HPR) accepts case reports. Case reports should constitute a significant contribution to the science of health. Case reports should not exceed 2300 words, that is 6 A4 pages, excluding the unstructured abstract (100-150 words) and references.

Short reports should be no more than 3200 words – about 8 A4 pages, excluding the structured abstract (100-150 words) and references. There should be no more than 20 references, no more than 2 tables and 1 figure, and no more than 5 authors.

Review articles should follow the format for a regular article, but should be submitted only after consultation with the Editors. Each review article should contain an unstructured abstract (100-150 words).

Tables and figures (photographs) should be numbered using Arabic numerals, placed on separate pages and submitted as separate files. Figures should be saved in one of the following formats: .cdr, .tif, .jpg, .ai, .bmp or .eps. Photographs submitted electronically should have a resolution of 300 dpi and should be saved as .tif or .jpg files. The locations of tables and figures should be indicated in the body of the text.
If a figure (photograph) has been previously published, the source should be given, and written permission to use it should be obtained from the copyright holder.

PROOFS
The editorial office reserves the right to make language corrections without consulting the author. Other changes are consulted with the authors.
The editorial office sends manuscripts to the authors for authorization.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST
Authors are expected to describe sources of the research funding, the role of any sponsor in planning, execution and analysis of the study, and the influence (bias) the funding organization had on the content of the article. Other relationships (such as employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, or paid expert testimony) providing potential sources of conflict of interest in relation to the submitted article should also be disclosed.

PATIENTS’ RIGHTS AND INFORMED CONSENT
When reporting experiments on human subjects, authors should indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000 (concerning ethical principles for the medical community and forbidding releasing the name of the patient, initials or the hospital evidence number) and with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national). Information regarding the ethical committee approval for conducting the research and the informed consent of patients for participating in the studies should be included in the methods section of articles describing studies in which the diagnostic intervention or the treatment included non-routine procedures. Authors presenting case studies are obligated not to disclose patients’ personal data. Regarding photographs, in case of any doubt that the image inadequately protects the patient’s anonymity, his consent is required for publication.

Clinical trials
Health Psychology Report 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 Health Psychology Report 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