INSTRUCTIONS TO THE AUTHORS

The Journal of Perinatal Medicine & Neonatology composes the scientific edition and ownership of both Hellenic Society of Perinatal Medicine (HSPM) and Hellenic Neonatal Society (HNS) scientific societies distributed to their members. Main goals of both societies comprise the information of neonatologists and obstetricians for health issues during perinatal and neonatal time period. Specifically, the HSPM and HNS will consider for publications Hellenic and English original papers as original reports, case reports, reviews, special papers (medico-legal issues, digital technology and Internet issues), extended abstracts of PhD dissertations and various articles (news, educational issues, ethics, resident page, conferences, book reviews and letters to the editor).

Accepted papers will be published in chronological order, with higher priority given to research papers. The Editing Committee has the right to prioritize articles for publications of high scientific interest, without preserving the submission order.

All the submitted manuscripts must be consistent to Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals instructions, which have recently been revised and have been published at http://www.icmje.org and http://www.icmje.org/icmje.pdf.

Additionally, adhere to journal’s instructions, which are included on its web site. Otherwise the manuscripts will be returned to the corresponding author for revision before peer review. All manuscripts are subject to review process. Reviewers may approve, make suggestions, or reject the manuscripts and the final decision concerning acceptance or rejection will be made by the Editor-in-Chief.

Preparation of manuscripts: All manuscripts should be prepared in Microsoft Word, in an A4 sheet, typed doubled spaced with ample margins (2.5cm) of a size of 10-12 pt on Times New Roman or Arial fonts.

Papers should be structured as follows: title page, structured abstract, text (introduction, patients and methods, results, discussion), references, tables, and figure legends. When a case report is submitted, the section “Materials and Methods” and “Results” should be replaced by description of the case (“Case Report” section). Reviews may be divided into several sections with headings, according to their content.

Manuscript’s extent should be for:

• Reviews at 2000-3000 words
• Research papers at 1500-2500 words and case reports at 1000-15000 words
• Short publications at 1000-1500 words
• Letters to the editor at 250-500 words

Title page
The title page should include the full title of the paper, a running title, the authors’ names and their affiliations, and the name and contact details of the corresponding author.

Abstract
The abstract should be informative and not descriptive. An abstract should not exceed 250 words, not less than 200 words and should be structured into four paragraphs: (1) Introduction, (2) Materials and Methods, (3) Results and (4) Conclusions. Case Reports should include Introduction, Case Report and Conclusions, whereas reviews should include Introductions, Main findings and Conclusions. Abstracts for case reports should not exceed 200 words. Articles in Greek should be accompanied by an extended structured abstract in English, including English translation of the title of the paper, the authors with their affiliations and the keywords. Translation from Greek language to English should be exact. For articles submitted in English, a translated abstract in Greek will be provided by the Editorial Board. Abstract is not needed in brief articles, such as commentaries, quiz, letters etc.

Text
Main articles should contain the following headings: Introduction, Materials and methods, Results (including statistical analysis) and Discussion.

Case Reports should comprise Introduction, Case Report and a brief Discussion. In all cases Discussion should clearly indicate how the work fits with the current body of literature.

References
References in the text must be numbered consecutively with the manuscript in the order in they are first mentioned and should be listed at the end of the paper (Vancouver system).

References should not be more than:

• 120 for reviews
• 45 for research papers
• 25 for case reports
• 10 for short communications and letters to the editor

References must include: names and initials of all authors (when more than six, give the first six followed by et al.), the title of the paper, the journal title abbreviated as in Index Medicus, year of publication, volume number, first and last page numbers. References to books should give the authors /editors, book title, edition, place of publication, publisher, year and pages. References should be quoted as follows:

Journal: Proesmans W. Bartter syndrome and its neonatal variant. Eur J Pediatr 1997;156:669-679.
Supplementary issue: Flyvbjerg A. Role of growth hormone, insulin-like growth factors (IGFs) and IGF-binding proteins in the renal complications of diabetes. Kidney Int 1997;52 (60 Suppl):S12-S19.
Without a writer: National Institutes of Health Consensus Development Conference. Neurofibromatosis conference statement. Arch Neurol 1988;45:575-578. 50
Type of article’s definition: Schreiner GF, Lange L. Ethanol modulation of macrophage influx in glomerulonephritis [Abstract]. J. Am Soc Nephrol 1991;2:562. Should antileukotriene therapies be used instead of inhaled corticosteroids in asthma? [Editorial]. Am J Respir Crit Care Med 1998;158:1697-1701. Laux-End R, Inaebnit D, Gerber HA, Bianchetti MG. Vasculitis associated with levamisole and circulating autoantibodies [Letter]. Arch Dis Child 1996;75:355-356.
Books: Clark AG, Barratt TM. Steroid-responsive nephrotic syndrome. In: Barratt TM, Arner ED, Harmon WE, editors. Pediatric Nephrology. 4th ed. Baltimore: Lippincott William Wilkins;1999. p. 742.
PhD: Kaplan SJ. Post hospital home health care: the elderly’s access and utilization [dissertation]. St. Louis (Mo): Washington Univ.; 1995.
CD-ROM
Anderson SC, Poulsen KB. Anderson’s electronic atlas of hematology [CD-ROM]. Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; 2002.
Internet
Article in a magazine: Abood S. Quality improvement initiative in nursing homes: the ANA acts in an advisory role. Am J Nurs [Internet]. 2002 Jun: Webpage: http://www.nursingworld.org/AJN/2002/june/Wawatch.htm
Web page: Cancer-Pain.org [Webpage, Internet]. New York; Association of Cancer Online Resources, Inc.; 2002: http://www.cancer-pain.org/

The responsibility of references’ checking rests with the author.

Tables
Data should be typed with double spacing, provided with a heading, numbering in sequence in Arabic numerals (Table 1, 2 etc.), and referred in the text as Table1, Table 2 etc. To draw a table, the use of horizontal lines not vertical is suggested. Data in tables should supplement, not duplicate, information provided in the text. Any abbreviations should be defined in table footnotes.

Figures
Illustrations or photographs should be submitted as separate files either as TIFF, BMP or JPG of high quality. Figures should have a minimal resolution of 300dpi or may embed in a Word file, especially for line art graphics. Images should be sized to fit the width of a column (approx 7cm) or page (till 16cm) in the journal. Color photographs are accepted but they may be converted in black and white for publication. If the size of the file exceeds 8 MB, they should be compressed in a lower resolution for the reviewing process.

Figure Legends
A list of legends for the figures should be submitted on a separate page, and should make interpretation possible without reference to the text. References to figures should be by Arabic numerals (e.g. Fig 3) in order of appearance.

Submission and Publication
On-Line Manuscript Submission: All manuscripts must be submitted on-line through the new Web site at https://www.jpmn.gr/en/paper-submission.

Proofs will be sent to the corresponding author as a PDF file and corrections should be returned electronically within 10 days. Any delay of the corrected proof above 15 days entails the paper in a new submission. Following publication, the paper will be available on the web of the journal. Authors submitting manuscripts do so with the understanding that if their work is accepted for publication, copyright of the article, including the right to reproduce the article in all forms, shall be exclusively assigned to the HSPM and HNS scientific societies. The views and opinions of the authors do not necessarily reflect those of HSPM and HNS scientific societies.

Submission Checklist
Please, check the following list befοre submission:

• A Cover Letter sent by e-mail to the Editor-In –Chief should refer to non-submission of the manuscript to another Greek or English Journal, signed by all co-authors
• Corresponding author’s postal address, E-nail and phone number
• Title, author names, institutions and abstract, both in Greek and English
• Structured abstract with keywords and running head
• All necessary files have been included (text, figures)
• All figures have proper analysis and are referred to the text
• All tables are referred in the text, are numbered and have titles and footnotes
• References must be in the correct format (cite references consecutively using numerals). All references should be checked for accuracy, should be cited in the text (and vice versa)
• Provide evidence that all ethical concerns of the journal have been followed

Ethical concerns
The journal’s policy follows the principles of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICNJE), which are available as a pdf file on the website of the journal.

Criteria for authorship: Greek Perinatal Medicine and Neonatology scientific societies insist that all authors are qualified to be listed as such according to the following criteria established by the ICMJE: (1) Conception and design of project or analysis of the manuscript data, (2) Drafting or critically revising the content of the manuscript submitted for publication, (3) Giving final approval of the version to be published. Others who have contributed to the work but are not qualified to be authors should be “acknowledged” at the end of the article.

Informed consent: For experimental articles of human subjects, state in the “Methods” section of the manuscript that the appropriate review board has approved the project. For those investigators who do not have formal Ethics Committee, the principles outlined in the declaration of Helsinki should be followed. Specify in the “Methods” section of the manuscript the way in which consent was obtained from all human subjects. Patient’s anonymity should be respected and not violated. Information, such as the name or photographs of the patients, should not be submitted until written informed consent has been provided. For this case, a Patient Consent Form is available on the journal’s website, which can be submitted with the manuscript.

Final disclosure information and potential conflicts of interest: In the end of the manuscript, all authors must disclose all financial relationships for their research. Any financial interests the authors may have with companies or other entities must be cited such as grants, advisory boards, employment, consultancies, contracts etc. If the authors disclose no conflicts of interest, they should write down “none”. Additionally, the form of disclosure of conflict of interest according to ICMJE available on the website of the journal, should be completed and sent, signed by all authors.