Instruction to Authors

1. Aim and Scope

Abyssinia Journal of Health Sciences (AJHS) is a multidisciplinary, open-access, double-blind, peer-reviewed journal dedicated to publishing high-quality and impactful research in the fields of biomedical sciences, public health, traditional medicine, clinical medicine, nursing, preventive medicine, and other disciplines related to medicine and health sciences. To minimize unnecessary delays in the publication process, authors are strongly encouraged to carefully read and strictly adhere to the following submission guidelines.

2. What AJHS Publish

AJMHS publishes the following, but not limited to;

• Original research
• Review: narrative or scoping
• Systematic review and meta-analysis
• Case report/case series
• Letter to editor
• Berief communication
• Research protocol

For further description of the type of articles, read the author source.

3. Ethics in publishing

The author, editor, peer reviewer, and publisher are the four key stakeholders in the publication process. Peer-reviewed articles play a crucial role in advancing knowledge by validating and disseminating new and significant scholarly work. Therefore, it is essential that all parties adhere to high standards of ethical behavior. Accordingly, the Abyssinia Journal of Health Sciences (AJHS) follows the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines to uphold integrity and maintain the highest standards in publishing ethics.

 

4. Conflict of interest

All authors must disclose any sources of funding that supported the research presented in their manuscript. In addition, authors are required to declare any financial or non-financial conflicts of interest that could be perceived as influencing the results or interpretation of their work. Potential conflicts may arise from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or affiliations with institutions, organizations, or individuals connected to the research; financial interests such as employment, honoraria, patents, grants, or other funding sources; or any other situation that could be viewed as a conflict of interest. All disclosures must be made at the time of manuscript submission. For the Conflict-of-Interest Form, please visit Author Resources at AuthorResources.

5. Submission declaration and verification

Submission of a manuscript to AJHS implies that the work described has not been previously published in any journal, is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, and has been approved by all authors as well as the responsible authorities at the institution where the research was conducted. Acceptance of a manuscript also indicates that the work will not be published elsewhere in the same form or in any other language, including electronic formats, without written permission from the copyright holder. The publisher assumes no legal responsibility for any claims arising from the content of the submitted manuscript.

For the Submission Declaration Form, please visit Author Resources at

 

6. Authorship

Researchers who have made significant contributions to the research work should listed as authors and co-authors. In case the manuscript has multiple authors, one of the authors should act as the corresponding author to communicate with the editors. The corresponding author needs to be decided before submission of the manuscript and should remain as the corresponding author throughout the review and publication process. The corresponding author is responsible to represent all coauthors involved in the work.

Authors will transfer the copyright of their work to Wollo University. Submission of a manuscript to this journal indicates that all authors have read and agreed to the content of the copyright letter. In submitting a manuscript to this journal, the corresponding author agrees to the following:

• The content of the article is original work of the listed authors
• All significant investigators should find a place as authors and all should agree to submit the manuscript to this journal
• The submitted manuscript has not been published or submitted to other journals for publication
• The authors accept the manuscript review procedures established by the AJHS

7. Changes to authorship

Any requests to add or remove an author, or to rearrange the order of author details, must be communicated to the Editor-in-Chief from the corresponding author of the accepted manuscript along with a statement of a valid reason the name should be added or removed, or the author names rearranged and undersigned declaration in the form of scanned copy through e-mail or consent letter from all authors stating that they agree with the rearrangement, addition or removal. In the case of addition or removal of authors also insists on the confirmation from the author being added or removed. The editor in chief suspends the publication of the accepted manuscript until the authorship issue (addition, rearrangement, or deletion) is resolved. Any request from the corresponding author to add, delete, or rearrange the order of author names in an article already published in an online issue will follow erratum publication in the future issue of the

8. Language

Manuscripts should be written in lucid and good English using correct diction, syntax and grammar, authors can use American or British language styles according to their convenience, but not a mixture of this two in one article. Any manuscript that does not meet a level of English proficiency consists with English-language journals will be rejected.

9. Copyright

Upon the acceptance of the manuscript, authors will be asked to complete and undersign a copyright form and submit its scanned copy via e-mail to the Editor-in-Chief.  Subscribers may reproduce tables of contents or prepare lists of articles that including abstracts for internal circulation within their institutions followed by proper citation and acknowledgments. Resale, distribution outside the institution (external circulation), and for other derivative works that include compilations and translations AJHS insists on permission from the publisher. For those who are interested to produce excerpts from other copyrighted works; the author(s) must obtain written permission from the copyright owners and credit the source(s) in the article for such works. For copyright form visit Author resources .

 

10. Plagiarism and Research Publication Misconduct

Authors must not use the words, figures, or ideas of others without acknowledgment. All sources must be cited at the point they are used, and reuse of wording must be limited and be attributed or quoted in the text. AJHS uses standard software to detect submissions that overlap with published and submitted manuscripts. Manuscripts that are found to have been plagiarized from a manuscript by other authors, whether published or unpublished, will be rejected and the authors. Any published articles may need to be corrected or retracted.

Authors whose submitted manuscripts which are found to include citations whose primary purpose is to increase the number of citations to a given author’s work, or to articles published in a particular journal, may incur sanctions. Editors and reviewers must not ask authors to include references merely to increase citations to their own or an associate’s work, to the journal, or to another journal they are associated with.

The authors of submitted manuscripts or published articles that are found to have fabricated or falsified results, including the manipulation of images, may incur sanctions, and published articles may be retracted.

11. Consent and Ethical Requirements

By submitting a manuscript to the Abyssinia Journal of Health Sciences, authors are deemed to have agreed to comply with the journal’s publication policies and requirements. Authors must confirm this agreement by submitting a signed cover letter stating that the manuscript is original, free from plagiarism, has not been submitted elsewhere, and will not be submitted to another journal while under review at AJHS. The corresponding author bears full responsibility for the content of the work submitted and published in the AJHS.

Research involving experimental animal or human subjects must adhere to the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki and must have received approval from a recognized ethics committee. During submission, make sure to include the name of ethical approval committee or institutional review board and ethical approval reference number in the manuscript. The Editor reserves the right to reject any manuscript that does not meet the necessary ethical standards.

For studies involving human participants, informed consent must be obtained from all participants (or from a parent or legal guardian in the case of minors under 18 years of age). A statement confirming informed consent should be included in the manuscript. Furthermore, research utilizing clinical, biomedical, or biometric data must only proceed with the explicit and voluntary consent of the individuals whose data are used.

 

12. Article Processing Charges

Articles published in AJHS are open access and freely available online after publication. This is made possible by financial support of the Publisher Wollo University. Therefore, no publication fee is required by AJHS.

 

13. Manuscript preparation

Use of word processing software

Save the article file in the default format of the word processor platform (Microsoft Word), keep the text in a single-column format, and maintain the layout of the text as simple as possible. Processing the article involves the removal of the formatting codes, don’t hyphenate words or justify text through word processing platform.  However, keep using boldface, italics, subscripts, superscripts, etc. in necessary fields. During the preparation of the tables, if you are using a table grid, use one grid for each individual table and not a grid for each row.  The preparation of the electronic text should be just very similar to that of the preparation of the conventional manuscript.  Use ‘spell-check’ and ‘grammar-check’ functions provided in your word processing platforms to avoid unnecessary errors.  Apply line numbering throughout the text. The Microsoft word should not be password protected or locked.

Manuscript Format and Style

The manuscript should be typed (12-point font, Times New Roman), 1.5 spaced (Including abstract and references) on A4 size white paper with 1-inch margins. The title page along with author names and their affiliation should appear on the first page and nowhere else in the manuscript.

Manuscript structure

Title page 

The title page should contain the following information

• A concise and clear title of the manuscript with no abbreviations
• Full name of the authors in order that appears in the published manuscript. Authors name should contain, first, middle and last name
• Affiliation and address of the authors including email. The affiliation includes; department, university/organization, city and country of the current institution
• One designated corresponding author (labeled with *) with full address including email, phone number and 16-digit ORCID

Abstract

The abstract should and contain a brief summary of the manuscript, not more than 300 words. It should state the purpose of the research and ascertain the paper's purpose with the principal results and major conclusions. The abstract should be presented separately from the article without references. If any essential abbreviations are required in the abstract they must be defined at its first mention. Non- standard and uncommon abbreviations should be avoided in the abstract. For original and review articles the abstract should be written in structured way containing; Background, Methods, Results, and Conclusions. For other type of publication unstructured abstract can be acceptable.

Keywords

As keywords help to display the paper to interested readers, other researchers and browsers. Abstract should be followed with a maximum of six keywords in chronological order. Always avoid common words such as ‘of’ ‘and’, and plural terms. Use abbreviations that are firmly established in the field of investigation.

The body of a manuscript should be structured clearly with specific defined sections.

• Introduction: It should explain the objectives of the research work with adequate background and supporting literature. At the same time, it should not be a detailed review of literature or historical perspective or just a summary of any research findings.
• Materials and Methods:In this section, sufficient necessary details need to be provided so that work can be reproduced. The methods already published elsewhere should be acknowledged with appropriate reference with necessary modification, if any. In addition to this, the necessary details of software such as STATA, SPSS, SAS, R, etc., should be provided in this section
• Results:Data should be clear and concise and presented preferably in the form of tables or figures or text as per the need of the manuscript, but do not try to present the same data in more than one form. Do not include too many tables and try to combine wherever possible. Use Arabic numerals for the table and figures and they should not exceed the specified margin area.
• Discussion:This should investigate the significance of the results obtained during the work, not repeating them in words or with units. Try to avoid extensive citations, review, and discussion of published literature in the discussion section.
• Conclusions:Conclusions section should present the main conclusions of the study that may stand alone at end of the discussion. It should be short and precise.
• Appendices: Appendix should be identified as A, B, C, etc. Equations or formulae in appendices should be given separate numbering: Eq. 1: and Eq. 2: etc.; in a successive appendix similarly for figures and tables: Fig. 1; and Table 1, etc.

Abbreviations

Use appropriate and standard abbreviations where and when required, regardless of how well known they are, always write a long name in full for the very first time you use them. Abbreviations that are unavoidable must be defined at their first mention; the first abbreviated term should be used in full with the abbreviation included in brackets. Ensure consistency of abbreviations throughout the article. Abbreviations should not be used in the title.

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments are polite gestures that enable authors to thank all those who helped in carrying out the research. Express your acknowledgments in a separate section at the end of the article before the references.   

Units

In the modern metric system of measurement and scientific reporting use of the international system of units (SI) is widely accepted.  Hence the authors are advised to use only the SI units thought out the length of the article. 

Tables and Figures

Tables and figures submitted to AJHS should be placed within the manuscript, positioned close to the paragraph where they are first cited. All tables and figures must be submitted in editable formats (e.g., Word or Excel for tables; original, uncompressed image files for figures).

Tables and figures should be numbered consecutively in Arabic numerals according to their order of appearance in the text. Each table should have a brief and descriptive title. Figure legends should clearly explain all abbreviations and labels used. For microscopic images, the type of stain and the level of magnification must be specified in the legend.

All tables and figures must be appropriately cited in the main text. Images, if included, should be provided in JPEG format with proper numbering and annotations. Figures or images must be presented in their original form—any artificial manipulation or enhancement is not permitted.

 

References

Citation: It is mandatory that the citation of every reference in the text is also present in the reference list (and vice versa). Citation of a reference in the reference section as 'in press' implies that the item has been accepted for publication and the same can be mentioned in the reference section. Unpublished results and personal communications are not recommended in the text as well as the reference list. Web references and secondary references are not accepted. Citations in the text provide brief information, usually the name of the author and the date of publication, to lead the reader to the source of information in the reference list at the end of the paper.  All citations must be in the Hanging Indent Format with the first line flush to the left margin and all other lines indented. This journal follows the Vancouver style in the reference list.

The in-text citation: to indicate reference in the in-text citation, use number in square bracket, but not author name and year of publication. The in-text citation should be placed immediately after the information being cited. Reference citation should be in chronological order if more than one article is cited for one sentence. 

Reference citation in the reference section: Author surname(s) or family name(s) or last name (as they appear on the actual publication) need to be mentioned in full and first and middle names as initials, the journal's complete name and the volume number are in italics. Issue numbers are not required if the journal is continuously paged. If paged individually, the issue number is required in parentheses adjacent to the volume number.

A digital object identifier (DOI) is a standardized method for identifying an electronic object. The author should mention the DOI at the end of each reference. Overall, the AJHS recommends to use recent reference manager software to have consistent referencing.

General Format  

Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. Name of the article. Title of Journal. (Publication Year). xx, xxx-xxx.

Article in Journal

Abebe MS, Asres K, Bekuretsion Y, Abebe A, Bikila D, Seyoum G. Sub-chronic toxicity of ethanol leaf extract of Syzygium guineense on the biochemical parameters and histopathology of liver and kidney in the rats. Toxicology Reports. 2021;8:822-8.

Book

Murray PR, Rosenthal KS, Pfaller MA. Medical Microbiology. 9th ed. Philadelphia: Elsevier; 2024.

Chapter in an Edited Book

Brown A, Davis M. Cardiovascular disease prevention strategies. In: Johnson P, editor. Principles of Preventive Medicine. 2nd ed. New York: Springer; 2022. p. 89–112.

Report (Organization or Government Publication)

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. National diabetes statistics report, 2023. Atlanta (GA): CDC; 2023.

Thesis or Dissertation

Alemu T. Prevalence of antimicrobial resistance in surgical site infections [master’s thesis]. Dessie: Wollo University; 2022.

14. Article Submission

Articles should be submitted via the submission platform of the journal (" Make SUBMISSION") or directly via the email signup for this purpose as per the guidelines for authors.

15. Revisions Process

After receipt of the reviews, the authors should return their revised version of articles or papers to the editorial office within specified time.

Initial Evaluation

After the submission, AJMHS follows double blinded peer review procedure. For more details, please refer peer review policy. Manuscripts that successfully pass the previous phase are assigned to an Associate Editor who coordinates peer review process. This assignment is performed algorithmically according to their subject expertise, or personally by a senior Editorial Board Member. The Associate Editor performs an assessment of the manuscript before inviting a number of potential reviewers to provide a peer-review report for those they deem potentially publishable. Reviewers are asked to summarize the manuscript, give constructive analysis, and suggest whether the manuscript should be rejected, reconsidered after changes, or published.

Making a Decision

Having read and assessed the manuscript, each reviewer will provide a report along with one of the following recommendations:

       ❖ Reject

       ❖ Consider after Major Changes

       ❖ Consider after Minor Changes

       ❖ Publish as it is

If the Editor decides to “Reject,” the authors are sent any review reports that have been received and are notified that their manuscript will no longer be considered for publication in the journal.

If the Editor decides to “Consider after Major Changes,” the authors are notified to prepare and submit an updated version of their manuscript with the necessary changes suggested by the reviewers. This might require new data to be collected or substantial revision of the text. The manuscript is then re-evaluated by one or more of the original reviewers before the Editor make a new recommendation.

If the Editor decides to “Consider after Minor Changes,” the authors are notified to prepare and submit a final copy of their manuscript with the required minor changes suggested by the reviewers. Once the Editor is satisfied with the final manuscript, optionally having sought further advice from one or more of the reviewers, the Editor can recommend “Publish Unaltered”.

Acceptance of Manuscript

Copyright

Upon the acceptance of the manuscript, authors will be asked to complete and undersign a copyright form and submit its scanned copy via e-mail to the Editor-in-Chief.  Subscribers may reproduce tables of contents or prepare lists of articles that including abstracts for internal circulation within their institutions followed by proper citation and acknowledgments. Resale, distribution outside the institution (external circulation), and for other derivative works that include compilations and translations AJHS insists on permission from the publisher. For those who are interested to produce excerpts from other copyrighted works; the author(s) must obtain written permission from the copyright owners and credit the source(s) in the article for such works. For copyright form visit Author resources at AuthorResources.

Proofs

A galley proof in PDF format will be sent to corresponding author. If authors have any problem with using the PDF a notation function, they may contact editor in chief with reference ID number of the manuscript. Please use galley proof only for checking the typographical errors in editing, completeness and correctness of the text, tables and figures.

Reprints

The corresponding authors can download an electronic form of the article without charges from the official journal website.