Submissions

Author Guidelines

GENERAL INFORMATION

Scripta Scientifica Medica publishes articles aimed to provide the most current information in various medical fields. All types manuscripts that have not been published previously in whole or part and are not under consideration for publication elsewhere can be submitted to the Journal.  All submissions will be assessed by an editor to determine whether they meet the aims and scope of this journal. Those considered to be a good fit will be sent for peer review before determining whether they will be accepted or rejected.

Approved for publication are Review articles, Original articles, Case Reports, Short Research Communications,  Scientific Letters, Letters to the Editor, Editorial Comments, Registered Clinical Trials, andBook reviews and Reports on publication and research ethics.

An editor may desk reject a submission if it does not meet minimum standards of quality. 

AUTHORSHIP

It is the responsibility of every person listed as an author of an article submitted to SSM to follow the criteria about the authorship recommended by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html:

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; AND
4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
5. All authors identified on the submission must consent to be identified as an author. 

ORCID ID

ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor) ID is a free, unique, persistent identifier (PID) for individuals to use as they engage in research, scholarship, and innovation activities. Detailed information about ORCID can be found at https://orcid.org/. ORCID numbers should be listed in the metadata section. The specification of an ORCID number for each author is mandatory for authors publishing in SSM.

ETHICS OF RESEARCH AND PUBLICATION

Manuscripts must follow ethical guidelines to be considered for publication (Committee on Publication Ethics, COPE – https://publicationethics.org/; Code of Conduct for Publication Procedures and Ethics - https://degruyter-live-craftcms-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/authors/Code-of-Conduct-Journal-Authors-EN.pdf?mtime=20211008110427&focal=none).

Before submitting the manuscript, all authors must agree to the applicable requirements: declaring conflicts of interest or proving compliance with legal requirements related to human and animal testing. Authors must declare their responsibility for the entire content of the manuscript. The Submission Checklist must be filled in. Please make sure that the information in the manuscript matches the information in the Checklist.

Plagiarism

Manuscripts are screened for plagiarism upon submission, and if such is found, they will be returned to the authors and re-checked again after correction. In case that a paper is already published in our journal but plagiarism is still detected or later reported by readers, it will be retracted from the journal and the authors' institutions and department heads will be notified to take actions. This includes data fabrication, data falsification and image manipulation.

Research ethics for participation of human subjects

Informed consent

The Protection of Privacy is a legal right that must not be infringed without individual informed consent. In cases where the identification of personal information is necessary for scientific reasons, authors should obtain written permission from the patient or their legal guardians prior to inclusion in the study.

The following (or similar) statement should be given at the end of the “Material and Methods” section.

• Example
  • “The current study was approved by the Ethics committee/other relevant institution (Protocol number, date). Informed consent was obtained from all individuals included in the study”.

Research ethics for use of experimental animals

Manuscripts containing information of the use of laboratory animals should clearly state that the research has complied with all relevant National regulations and Institutional policies. For Bulgarian researchers’ information on research ethics and/or approval by the Bulgarian Food Safety Agency should be given in the Methods section (Protocol/Approval number, date). International researchers must consult their National Agency.

Conflict of interest

Potential conflict of interests includes: professional or financial gain; personal or academic relationships or competition; religious, philosophical, or political beliefs; or any factor that prevents the independent preparation or publishing of a manuscript.

To ensure fair and objective decision-making, authors must declare any associations that pose a conflict of interest (financial, personal, or professional) in connection with the manuscript under evaluation. Authors should disclose in the main text of the manuscript before the list of references a potential conflict of interests.

• Examples
  • This research received additional support from an organization beyond the authors' academic institutions/ There are personal financial interests or professional relationships to disclose/ There are patents to disclose/Additional relationships or activities to declare.
  • If no conflict of interest exist, “Nothing to declare” should be stated.

Generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in scientific writing

Authors should strictly follow the rules for Generative AI policies for journals

(https://www.elsevier.com/about/policies-and-standards/generative-ai-policies-for-journals).

The following should be taken into account:

• Generative AI and AI-assisted technologies should only be used in the writing process to improve the readability and language of the manuscript.
• The technology must be applied with human oversight and control and authors should carefully review and edit the result. Authors are ultimately responsible and accountable for the contents of the work.
• Authors must not list or cite AI and AI-assisted technologies as an author or co-author on the manuscript.
• Authors should disclose in the main text of the manuscript before the list of references the use of AI and AI-assisted technologies and a statement will appear in the published work. There is no need to declare the use of AI if only basic tools, such as check grammar, spelling and references tools have been used.
• Examples
  • “During the preparation of this manuscript the author(s) used [NAME TOOL / SERVICE] for [REASON]. After using this tool/service, the author(s) reviewed and edited the content as needed and take(s) full responsibility for the content of the published article”.
  • “During the preparation of the manuscript the authors did not use AI and AI-assisted technologies” (when there is nothing to disclose).

It is not permitted to use of Generative AI or AI-assisted tools to create or alter images in submitted manuscripts. The only exception is if the use of AI or AI-assisted tools is part of the research design or methods (for example, AI-assisted imaging approaches to generate or interpret the underlying research data in the field of biomedical imaging). If this is the case, such use must be described in a reproducible manner in the methods section, including the name of the model or tool, version and extension numbers, and manufacturer. The use of generative AI or AI-assisted tools in the production of artwork such as for graphical abstracts is not permitted. The use of generative AI in the production of cover art may in some cases be allowed, if the author obtains prior permission from the journal editor and publisher, can demonstrate that all necessary rights have been cleared for the use of the relevant material, and ensures that there is correct content attribution.

PREPARATION AND SUBMISSION OF A MANUSCRIPT

The manuscripts must be submitted through the online submission system, which requires a registration in order to use it (https://press-muv.com/ssm/web/index.php/ssm/submission). Submissions by email of any manuscript files, either to the editors or to the journal office, are not acceptable and are discarded automatically.

MANUSCRIPT FORMATTING

Original articles

Manuscript format must be in accordance with the ICMJE-Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals (https://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf). Papers that do not comply with the format of SSM will be returned to the author for correction without further review.

Title

Manuscript title should be concise but descriptive.

Author's names, primary affiliation, e-mail

Fill in the full first and last name of the first author, primary affiliation, e-mail address, and ORCID number. If there are co-authors, the user should use the "Add Author" button to add each co-author, (names, primary affiliations, e-mail addresses, and ORCID numbers.

The name, affiliation, address, phone and email address of the corresponding author should be added.

Abstract

The abstract must be no longer than 250 words summarizing the essential new information. The text of the structured abstract should contain the following four sections: Introduction, Aim, Participants and Methods/Materials and Methods, Results and Conclusions. Abstract should not contain citations to references, any images or equations.

Keywords

Please provide up to 6 keywords in English that reflect the content of the paper. It is recommended to consider the subject headings of Index Medicus ().

MAIN DOCUMENT

The main document should include the body text, the reference list, images, tables, figures, and figure legends embedded in their corresponding places. Reference list, images, figures and tables must also be submitted as separate supplementary files.

Any information that may indicate an individual or institution should be excluded from the main document to ensure a blinded review process.

Article text

The text of the manuscript must be submitted as a file which does not contain author names and affiliations. All illustrations, figures, and tables must be placed within the text at the appropriate places.

The structure of the body of the manuscript should include the following sections:

Introduction: Should concisely state the main objective of the study and should provide a background for the study. The novelty of the study should be clearly pointed out.

Aim: Briefly describe the purpose of the study.

Materials and Methods / Patients and Methods: Should describe the design of the study (randomization, cross-over, prospective or retrospective etc.), the setting (hospital, university or private practice, primary or tertiary care etc.) and the object (patients or participants, experimental animals, cell cultures etc.) of the study. Should also give details of the numbers and descriptions of patients, participants of samples in the study and detailed information about treatment, intervention, technique or procedure. When reagents and apparatus, drug, product, hardware, or software are mentioned within the main text, information, including the name of the product, manufacturer, city and the country of the company should be provided in parenthesis in the following format: “Trade name of the device/chemical/consumable (Producer, Address, Country”.

If the scientific research includes the participation of human subjects, there must be a statement that it has been approved by the Local Ethics Committee with indicated number and date of the document. In case the study is on laboratory animals, there must be a statement that it has been approved by the appropriate National Agency with indicated number and date of the document.

Results: should be summarized with relevant statistical indices, following the requirements for tables and figures;

Discussion: must review the relevant literature on the subject and discuss the findings of the current study in their differences and similarities; the strengths and the limitations of the study should be pointed out and discussed.

Conclusion(s): should be directly supported by the data, with equal emphasis on positive and negative findings;

Pages should be 1.15-spaced, Times New Roman should be used throughout, sized at 12 pt. Captions should be used within the body of the manuscript to outline important points. The text of the manuscript should be submitted in Microsoft Word .doc/.docx format. Pages numbering is welcome.

REFERENCES

References should follow the standards summarized in the NLM's International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals: Sample References (www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html) webpage and detailed in the NLM's Citing Medicine, 2^nd edition (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK7256/). These resources are regularly updated as new media develops, and currently include guidance for print documents (journal articles, books or other monographs); unpublished material; audio and visual media; material on CD-ROM, DVD, or disk; and material on the Internet (URL, DOI, database).

The reference list should be prepared in style Vancouver (https://www.scribbr.co.uk/referencing/vancouver-style/). In Vancouver style, citations are marked in the text with Arabic numbers in square brackets: Parentheses numbering: Levitt [2] argues that … .

All references mentioned in the Reference list should be cited in the text and vice versa. References should be numbered and ordered sequentially as they are cited in the text: the first source cited is 1, the second 2, and so on. If the same source is cited again, the same number is used to refer to it throughout your paper. This means that the numbers might not appear in consecutive order in the text. In the list of references, sources should be listed numerically; each number in the reference list should be placed in square brackets ([1], [2], …).

The authors are encouraged to use Reference Managing Software such as Zotero, EndNote, Mendeley, and others.

The following basic examples illustrate the format to be used:

Journal article with less than 3 authors

Iwamoto Y, Koide H, Ogita K. The protein kinase C family for the regulation of cellular functions. Biomed Rev. 1992;1:1-6.

Journal article with more than 3 authors

Rose ME, Huerbin MB, Melick J, et al. Regulation of interstitial excitatory amino acid concentrations after cortical contusion injury. Brain Res. 2002;935(1-2):40-6.

Book

Murray PR, Rosenthal KS, Kobayashi GS, Pfaller MA. Medical microbiology. 4^th ed. St. Louis: Mosby; 2002.

Book chapter

Thornton T. On the interface problem in philosophy of psychiatry. In: Broome MR, Bortolotti L, editors. Psychiatry as Cognitive Neuroscience: Philosophical Perspectives. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2009. p. 121-137.

URL

American Medical Association [Internet]. Chicago: The Association; c1995-2002 [updated 2001 Aug 23; cited 2002 Aug 12]. AMA Office of Group Practice Liaison; [about 2 screens]. Available from: http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/1736.html

DOI

Zhang M, Holman CD, Price SD, et al. Comorbidity and repeat admission to hospital for adverse drug reactions in older adults: retrospective cohort study. BMJ. 2009 Jan 7;338:a2752. doi: 10.1136/bmj.a2752.

Abbreviations of journal titles should follow those listed in the Index Medicus (http://www2.bg.am.poznan.pl/czasopisma/medicus.php?langeng). Responsibility for the correctness of the references lies with the author(s). After the manuscript revisions, authors should double check that all in-text citations are in the reference list and that all references on the reference list have at least one corresponding in-text citation.

NOTE: If there are any references the original titles of which are in a non-Latin alphabet, they should be translated or transcribed. At the end, in brackets, there should be the original language, e.g. (in Bulgarian).

IMAGES, FIGURES, DIAGRAMS AND TABLES

A review article should contain no more than 6 tables and 10 figures.

An original article should contain no more than 6 tables and 6 figures.

• We recommend that any data presented in tables and figures should not duplicate results described elsewhere in the article. No data reiterations in the text, tables, and figures are permitted.
• Figures (diagrams, drawings, graphs, photos, images) should be embedded in the manuscript text file at the appropriate place with captions and legends placed below the figure.  They must also be uploaded as separate files in TIFF, EPS, JPG, PNG, BMP or JPEG format.
• Diagrams, drawings, graphs must be vector ones or saved at a resolution of at least 600 dpi. Diagrams should be in the original file format with data sheets.
• All photos should be with a resolution of 300 dpi with a width of 80 mm for a single-column image and 165 mm for a double-column image.
• Images with text must be at a resolution of at least 300 dpi. They should be sufficiently contrasted and with a minimal size of 8 cm in width (1 column) or 16.6 cm in width (2 columns).
• Tables should be embedded in the manuscript text file at the appropriate place with a title placed above the table.
• Tables should also be uploaded as separate files and each table should have a title placed above the table.
• Each uploaded file should contain the corresponding Figure/Table/Image number.
• All photographs, diagrams, graphs, and tables must be cited in the text (e.g., “Table 1” or “Fig. 1”).

DATA SHARING

Research data refers to the results of observations or experimentation that validate research findings, which may also include software, code, raw or processed data files, models, algorithms, protocols, methods and other useful materials. As SSM offers double-anonymized peer review, the authors are required to prepare anonymized version of their manuscript to facilitate anonymized peer review.

Authors should include a generalized data availability statement (DAS) when the data will be available on request, but not include the details of the specific author or their contact details in the anonymized version of the manuscript.

Example: “The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, [author initials], upon reasonable request.”

For authors who want or are required to share data in a repository, the live link to the full data set or the contact details of the authors should be included in the DAS in the full version of the submission and cited in the reference list to be sure this is available to readers upon publication.

When data sharing is not applicable, the authors should declare: “Data sharing is not applicable to this article as [no new data were created or analyzed in this study] or [due to  the nature of the research] or [ethical/legal/commercial restrictions] or [the participants of this study did not give written consent for their data to be shared publicly]”.

AFTER APPROVAL OF ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

Proof reading and copy editing

After approval for publishing a proof-reading and copy-editing is performed. The purpose of the proof is to check the typesetting, editing, completeness and correctness of the manuscript text, tables and figures. Significant changes at the proofing stage will only be considered with approval of the journal editor.

Corresponding authors receive an e-mail with the corrected version of the manuscript and need to e-mail the Copy-Editor for approval the edited version.

Layout editing and proof corrections

For manuscripts accepted for publication, Galley PDFs will be produced by a Layout Editor and uploaded to the online manuscript tracking system. Once the Galley PDF is available, the authors will be informed by e-mail to log in to the system, download the Galley PDF, do proof-reading and return a list with corrections. No major changes in, or additions to, the edited manuscript will be allowed at this stage. Proofreading is solely the Authors' responsibility. Corrections to the proofs must be returned using the online manuscript tracking system within 72 hours after receipt. If the Publisher receives no response from the Author(s) after 72 hours, it will be assumed that there are no errors to correct and the article will be published as it is.