Author Instructions

Manuscript submission:

Reviews

The journal encourages submission of review articles addressing recent advances/controversies. These may be submitted as either Review Papers, Drug Review, Update or Perspective. Please note that as a routine, all review papers submitted to Indian Pediatrics undergo a plagiarism check, and the articles are promptly sent back for revision or rejected depending on the extent of similarity with the published literature.

Review Paper:

State-of-the-art review articles with, critical assessments of literature are published. Generally, review articles solicited. The authors may consult the Editor-in-Chief before submitting such articles, as similar reviews may already be in submission. Generally, a review article on a subject already published in Indian Pediatrics in last five years is not accepted. The typical length for review articles is 2500-3000 words (excluding tables, figures, and references). An abstract of around 200 words with the following sections: Context (describing the clinical question or issue and its importance in clinical practice or public heath), Evidence acquisition (describing the data sources used, including the search strategies, years searched, and other sources), Results (major findings           of the review with the greatest emphasis laid on the findings based on highest quality evidence), and Conclusions (emphasize how clinicians should apply current knowledge) is needed. The number of references should be limited to 35. Authors should take care to avoid excessive self-citation. The number of authors should be limited to five.

Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Methods section for these manuscripts should be divided in to the following sub-headings:

Search eligibility: Mention the inclusion criteria (in the PICOT format) and exclusion criteria.

Search strategy: This should mention the time frame of the literature search, the names of the databases, and the search strategy. The names of the databases are to be mentioned, giving full details of search terms and strategy may be additionally provided as a web table. It should show the syntaxes used in database searches in a tabulated manner with column headings: Name of Database; Search strategy; Results (no. of articles obtained).

Data extraction: Here authors should mention where the data obtained in the databases was exported and thereafter, what kind of data extraction form was used to extract data of the eligible articles (after removing duplicates), giving the few relevant headings of the form e.g. (i) study information, including geographic location, survey years, research design, sample size, percentage of respondents among eligible participants, and number of institutions included; (ii) characteristics of participants, including mean age, gender, specialties; and (iii) outcomes.

Quality assessment: The methodology for quality assessment is to be mentioned here, clearly describing the scoring criteria.

Statistical analysis: The statistical analyses carried out should be mentioned, including heterogeneity, estimate of effect, sensitivity and subgroup analysis.

The results section should describe the included studies giving the PRISMA flow diagram showing the number of studies excluded and the reasons. A table is to be given showing the characteristics of the included studies, mentioning the author with the citation, country, year, number of participants in the study, and other important parameters as per the purpose of the review.

The quality assessment of each included study needs to be elaborately depicted in a tabulated manner or in the form of a figure, mentioning the scores against each criterion. This quality assessment table/figure is to be provided by authors as a web fig. or web table.

It is desirable that meta-analyses is depicted as 1-2 Forest plot figures. The Forest plot is to be labelled completely and it should show the name of the author, with citation, year, N and either RR or OR or MD or HR (with 95% CI) against each weighted horizontal bar, with the weights being mentioned for each bar. The heterogeneity with P value also needs to be shown in the figure.

Additional sensitivity analysis, sub-group analysis, or publication bias Funnel plot, if done by authors, may be provided as a web figure or web table.

Drug Review:

Indian Pediatrics publishes state of the art reviews on drugs/agents meant for therapeutic or prophylactic use in children. It is expected that the authors have sufficient credible experience in the related field. The following guidelines should be adhered to when preparing a drug review:

• Drug should be recently developed and should be available commercially (in India) for use in human subjects. Reviews related to agents under research and development, are generally not accepted.
• Drug should preferably belong to a new class of drugs or having substantial difference in properties and not just an addition to the existing drugs having many similar properties/actions in that class/group of compounds.
• The drug should have the potential to be used on a large scale for pediatric conditions. Drugs primarily catering to other medical fields (e.g. adult medicine, dermatology) are not preferred.
• The drug and related review should have the potential to influence practice, policy and research related issues.
• The review should be a systematic, critical assessment of the literature and not just an elaboration of the information already provided by pharmaceutical companies.

Update:

Short write-ups on recent modifications or revisions of standard guidelines, classifications or recommendations issued by global organizations on topics of interest to pediatricians are published in this section. The word limit is 1000 words, author limit is three, and a maximum of two brief tables and 10 references are allowed. An unstructured abstract of up to 50 words should also be included. It is preferable that only the most relevant changes from the previous version are provided in a tabular form. The manuscript should preferably include an ‘introduction’ detailing the current status of the disease/guideline and the need for the revision, important changes in the new version, and the implications of the changes. Avoid reproducing large parts of the guidelines/recommen-dations in the manuscript. Only the significant changes should be detailed.

Perspective :

Articles should cover challenging and controversial topics of current interest in pediatric health care and the intersection between medicine and society. Though the articles are usually solicited, we welcome submissions and proposals from researchers and opinion-makers, provided they have sufficient credible experience and recognition on the subject for giving opinions. The number of authors should usually be limited to three. The word limit is about 2000 words and may include one figure and one table. It should be accompanied with an unstructured abstract of up to 150 words. The views should be supported by appropriate evidence and references. Number of references should be limited to a maximum of 25. Some of the manuscripts submitted as ‘Review Articles’ may also be considered for publication under this section after editing, at the discretion of editors. Articles pertaining to medical education will also be considered in this section.

Clinical Practice Guidelines/Recommendations :

In order to streamline the diagnosis, management and prevention of various childhood problems, Indian Pediatrics periodically publishes guidelines and recommendations formulated by various Chapters and Task Forces constituted by Indian Academy of Pediatrics (IAP) or a similar National Association/ Society. The eight desirable attributes of practice guidelines are validity, reliability and reproducibility, clinical applicability, flexibility, clarity, documentation, development by a multidisciplinary process, and plans for review. In order to maintain uniformity of reporting and improve readability and applicability of these practice guidelines, the following 10-point policy should be followed:

1. The Guideline/Recommendation should have been formalized through a consultative meeting/conference/workshop having a National represen-tation approved by Indian Academy of Pediatrics (IAP) or a similar society. The guidelines emerging out of one such meeting should be preferably presented in a single paper.
2. The date(s) and place of such meeting should be clearly mentioned in the Introduction. The names of the chairperson, convener and participants should be listed as ‘Annexure’ at the end of the draft.
3. All the authors of the guidelines should fulfil the authorship criteria as per ICMJE. All other people who have contributed to the development of guidelines, including the members of the committee framing the guidelines, should be listed in an annexure as contributors. The whole committee should not be the author of a guideline, unless all the members fulfil the ICMJE authorship criteria; it is preferable to have a writing committee of 6-8 members for the purpose.
4. The final guidelines should be cleared by the related Society/Chapter. A letter to this effect should be enclosed. All guidelines of IAP should be routed through the concerned chapter, and should be approved by the Executive Board of IAP. The corresponding author must obtain permission from all members of the committee/expert group to act in this capacity.
5. The manuscript should consist of an Abstract (250-300 words), Text (3000-4000 words), and References (up to 50). The number of figures and tables should be limited to two and four respectively.
6. Abstract should be structured as Justification, Process, Objectives, and Recommendations.
7. Text should be arranged under the following headings: Introduction, Aims and Objectives, and Recommen-dations. A concluding paragraph should be provided.
   • a) Introduction: Justify the need of formulating the guidelines/recommendations in a brief paragraph followed by the process of arriving at the guide-lines/recommendations. Describe the methods used to search the literature, and criteria used to grade the quality of evidence.
   • b) Objectives: Should clearly state (in doable terms, using action verbs) the terms of reference of the consultative meeting/conference/workshop. List 2-3 main objectives only.
   • c) Text: The main text of the Guidelines/Recommendations should be mentioned under the same terms of reference as per aims and objectives outlined earlier. Preferably, provide level of evidence for each major recommen-dation.
   • d) The Recommendations should not provide ‘Review of literature’ or ‘What is already known’. Background material on the concerned subject will not be published.
   • e) If guidelines are adapted from statement of some other society or from earlier recommendations, only changes need to be highlighted (preferably in a tabular form) without repeating the detailed guidelines. However, if there is a pressing need to repeat the recommendations, it should be done after taking permission from the parent society/journal (as applicable) clearly mentioning and citing the source.
8. State, whether or not there is a plan to review these guidelines and an expiration date for this version of the guideline.
9. Any competing interest, including funding support, should be declared.
10. We encourage the authors to attach an AGREE (Appraisal of Guidelines Research & Evaluation) checklist for reporting clinical practice guidelines (www.equator-network.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/AGREE-Reporting-Checklist.pdf).

Authors should note that the words/phrases like ‘recommended’, ‘strongly recommended’, ‘mandated’, ‘should be done’, ‘should be considered’ have different connotations. Such terms should be clarified in the context of the guidelines, either in the Introduction section or as a Box in the beginning of the article.

Clinicopathological conference, a method of case-based teaching, is frequently used in institutions and primarily consists of a logical, narrowing of the differential diagnosis in a patient. The journal publishes CPCs, provided they fulfil the following criteria:

• At least three different departments are involved in the CPC, with each providing significant contribution to the discussion.
• The case represents a problem likely to be seen in the routine pediatric settings in India. They patient may later-on be diagnosed with a rare condition, but the initial presentation should be mimicking a common condition.
• An unstructured abstract of up to 100 words, and 3-5 keywords should be provided.
• The write-up should have the following headings: i) Clinical Protocol; ii) Pathology Protocol; iii) Open Forum; iv) Discussion; and v) References.
• The discussants’ names should not be provided in the manuscript and should be the referred to as Pediatrician 1, Pediatrician 2…; Pediatric surgeon 1, Pediatric surgeon 2,…; Neurologist 1, Neurologist 2,… and so on. The names of these persons may be listed at the end of manuscript as participants.
• The typical word count for this section is 2500-3000 words with upto 15 references. Up to three persons from the primary department and one person from each of the associated department may be included as the author of the manuscript.
• Up to two tables and two figures are permitted in this section.
• The full discussion held in the CPC need not be presented verbatim. Questions and answer dealing with the same aspect should be clubbed together.

Correspondence :

Letters commenting upon recent articles in Indian Pediatrics are welcome. Such letters should be received within three months of the article’s publication. Letters commenting on ‘Invited or Special Articles’, ‘Case Reports’ and ‘Correspondence’, are generally not preferred. At the Editorial Board’s discretion, the letter may be sent to the authors for reply and the letter alone or letter and reply together may be published after appropriate review. Letters may also relate to other topics of interest to pediatricians, or useful clinical observations. The manuscript must have a title that should be different from the title of the paper it intends to comment upon. Letters should not have more than 500 words, and 5 most recent references. The text need not be divided into sections. The number of authors should not exceed two, including the authors’ reply in response to a letter commenting upon an article published in Indian Pediatrics. In the latter case, inclusion of only one of the authors (of the article in question) is permissible along with the corresponding author. Names of additional persons who have helped in drafting the letter can be mentioned in the acknowledgment section.

Title Page: At the beginning, mention the category (i.e. Research Paper, Research Brief, etc.) for which the article is being submitted. The page should contain (i) the title of the article: which should be concise but informative; the type of study may be added in title after a colon; (ii) a short running title of not more than 40 characters; (iii) first name and surname (both are essential) of each author with the highest academic degree(s) and designation at the time when the work was done; initials will not be accepted for surnames. For example; ‘Vidya K’: here, ‘K’ will be considered as the Initial and ‘Vidya’ will be indexed as Last name; (iv) details of the contribution of each author; (v) name of department(s) and institution(s) to which the work should be attributed (This should mention the institution of affiliation at the time of conduct of the study, not your current affiliation); (vi) disclaimers, if any; (vii) name, address and e-mail of the corresponding author, (viii) source(s) of support in the form of grants, equipment, drugs or all of these; (ix) declaration on competing interests; (x) Status of ethical clearance for the study along with name of Ethics Committee clearing the research study, and the date and number of the clearance from the committee; (xi) Clinical trial registration number in cases of clinical trials; and (xii) word count (not including abstract, tables, figures, acknowledgments, key messages and references). A statement regarding ethical clearance and trial registration (if done) should also be provided in the methods section of the manuscript, without including any identifying details (Ethics committee name, Trial registration number etc.)

Authorship Criteria: All persons designated as authors should qualify for authorship. The journal endorses the ICMJE requirements for authorship, which is based on the following four criteria: (i) Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND (ii) Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND (iii) Final approval of the version to be published; AND (iv) 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. Conditions (i), (ii) (iii) and (iv) must all be met, for all authors, individually.

One of the authors shall act as corresponding author of the paper and he/she should take the responsibility of co-ordinating the work as a whole, from its inception to published article. All authors must give signed consent to publication. Available from: https://indianpediatrics.net/AnnexureI.pdf. The name of the designated author who should be approached for access to raw data should also be stated in the contributors’ details, along with e-mail (if different from the corresponding author).

Group Authorship: If only the name of the group is provided, all members of the group (e.g., Pediatric Nephrology Subchapter of IAP) must meet the criteria of authorship as described above. In case name of few authors is followed by name of the group linked by ‘and’; all members of the group must meet the criteria of authorship as described above. In case name of few authors is followed by name of the group linked by ‘for’; only the named authors need to meet the criteria of authorship as described above. The names of other members of the group should be listed as an Annexure at the end of the manuscript as contributors.

Competing Interests: Competing interest for a manuscript exists when the author has ties to activities that could inappropriately influence his or her judgment, whether or not judgment is in fact affected. Financial relationships with industry, for example, through employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, grant, expert testimony, either directly or through immediate family, are usually considered to be the most important competing interests. If competing interest exists, the author(s) must disclose them while submitting the manuscript.

Funding: Authors are required to report all financial and material support for the research work, including grant number and funding agency.

Abstract and Keywords: A structured abstract is to be sent in case of Research Paper (250 words), Review (300 words), Research Brief (150 words) and Guidelines (300 words). Unstructured abstract is required for Perspective (150 words), Clinicopathological Conference (100 words), Update (50 words), Research letters (50 words), Ethisection (200 words), Beyond Borders (200 words) and Child Health Technology (150 words). For brevity, parts of the abstract may be written as phrases rather than complete sentences [2]. No abbreviations should be used in the abstract.

Three to five key words to facilitate indexing should be provided in alphabetical order below the abstract. Terms from the Medical Subject Headings (MESH) list of National Library of Medicine should preferably be used. Do not repeat words already included in the title.

Introduction: The introduction must clearly justify and state the question that the author(s) tried to answer in the study [2]. It may be necessary to briefly review the relevant literature. Cite only those references that are essential to justify the proposed study.

Methods: The methods section should describe, in logical sequence, how the study was designed (e.g. how randomization was done), carried out (e.g. how subjects were chosen or excluded, ethical considerations, accurate details of materials used, exact drug dosage and form of treatment) and data were analyzed (e.g. an estimate of the power of the study, exact test used for statistical analysis) [3]. For standard methods, appropriate references are sufficient, but if standard methods are modified these should be clearly brought out. Authors should provide complete details of any new methods or apparatus used. Commercial names of the drugs/equipment may be used once at first mention, with the initial letter capitalized and manufacturer’s name in parentheses. Subsequently the scientific/non-propriety name is to be used throughout. © or TM in superscript after the propriety name is not required.

Clinical trial: Manuscripts reporting the results of a randomized controlled trial (RCT) should include the CONSORT flow diagram showing the progress of patients throughout the trial.

Trial registration: We strongly recommend that all authors register their clinical trials involving human subjects in the Clinical Trials Registry of India at www.ctri.in, hosted by the Indian Council of Medical Research. Preference will be accorded to registered clinical trials. Registration in following trial registries is also acceptable: http://www.actr.org.au; http://www. clinicaltrials.gov; http://isrctn.org; http://www.trial register.nl/trialreg/index.asp; and http://www.umin. ac.jp/ctr. The trial registration status and number should be mentioned on title page in all interventional studies.

Ethics :

All studies involving human subjects must address ethical issues. When reporting research on human subjects, indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional or regional) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1964, as revised in 2013. All research studies should have obtained ethical clearance in writing from a formally constituted Institutional Ethics Committee, and the same should be stated in the manuscript (with name of ethics committee clearing the study, along with date and number in the title page; and a statement of ethical clearance without mentioning the identifying details in the Methods section). Indian Pediatrics reserves the right to demand a copy of the relevant document, whenever necessary. Even when a study has been approved by a Research ethics committee, reviewers/editors may be concerned about the ethics of the work. Editors may then ask authors for more detailed information and ask them about the ethical and moral justification of the work. Editors may also ask authors to provide the contact details of the research ethics committee that reviewed the work, so that the journal can request further information and justification from that committee. Editors may consult other editorial colleagues, the Committee on publication ethics (COPE), or more commonly the Ethical advisors of Indian Pediatrics, to evaluate the ethical aspects of any article, and reserve the right to reject a manuscript on ethical grounds, even if the research was cleared by the institutional ethics committee. Besides rejecting the manuscript, the journal reserves the right of explaining such concerns to the head of the authors’ institution or the medical council in order to prevent unethical practices and to protect patients.

Results: This section should include only relevant, representative data and not all information collected during the study. Major findings should be presented clearly and concisely [5]. It may also be useful to mention what the study did not find. Write units along with data at all places in the manuscript. Journal uses the format “mean (SD), median (IQR)” rather than “mean ± SD, median ± IQR” for reporting summary measures. Text, tables, and illustrations should be used judiciously. Avoid repeating in the text the data depicted in the tables or illustrations; emphasize or summarize only important observations. Restrict tables and figures to those needed to explain the argument of the paper. Cite the tables sequentially in the text, and provide each table on a new page after the reference section. Do not insert figures or tables in the main text of the manuscript. Avoid the terms mutation and polymorphism, instead use sequence variant, sequence variation, alteration or allelic variation. Similarly, use SNV (single nucleotide variation) instead of SNP (single nucleotide polymorphism).

Units of measurement: Measurements of length, height, weight, and volume should be reported in metric units, i.e. meter (m), gram (g), or liter (L) or their decimal multiples. P value to be expressed upto three decimal places. All other values to be reported up to two decimal places. Milliliter or deciliter should be expressed as mL or dL and not ml or dl. Red blood cell, white blood cell and platelet counts are to be expressed as ×1012/L, ×109/L and ×109/L, respectively. Temperatures should be given in degrees Celsius. Blood pressures should be given in millimeters of mercury (mmHg). All hematological and clinical chemistry measurements should be reported in terms of the International System of Units (SI).

Abbreviations and symbols: : Use only standard abbreviations. Avoid abbreviations in the title and abstract, unless pertinent. The expanded form of the abbreviation should precede its first use in the text, unless it is a standard unit of measurement. Year, month, week, day, hour, minute and second should be abbreviated as y, mo, wk, d, h, min, and s, respectively in tables and figures, but not in text.

Discussion: Ordinarily it should not be more than one-fourth of the total length of the manuscript. Do not attempt a detailed review of literature [6]. This section should include (unheaded paragraphs in the order specified): (i) a summary of the major findings, (ii) limitations of the study, (iii) their relationship to other similar studies, and (iv) generalizability of the findings, and implications for practice/policy/research. Conclusions should be linked to the goals of the study. Avoid unqualified statements and conclusions not completely supported by the data. Authors should also refrain from making statements on economic benefits and costs unless their manuscript includes eco-nomic data and analyses.

Authors need to be accurate in citing and quoting references [7]. References should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text. Identify references in text, tables, and legends by Arabic numerals in square brackets. References cited only in tables or in legends to figures should be numbered in accordance with the sequence established by the first identification in the text of the particular table or figure. Use the style of the examples below. The titles of journals should be abbreviated according to the style used in PubMed. Do not use unpublished observations and personal communications as references. References to papers accepted but not yet published should be designated as “in press”; authors should obtain written permission to cite such papers as well as verification that they have been accepted for publication. Do not cite foreign language references unless a certified English version is also available. The references must be verified by the author against the original documents. The Uniform Requirements style (the Vancouver style) is based largely on an American National Standards Institute (ANSI) standard style adapted by the NLM for its databases. Please take care that citations are not directly copied and pasted from websites; remove the hyperlinks from the same. If the web version of a journal has been consulted instead of the print version, the same should be listed in the list of references. Avoid including any reference to the studies published in predatory journals [8]. Ensure that all hyperlinks have been removed from references. The manuscript may be returned to authors for re-typing, in case this is detected during the final page-setting. There is no need to provide location of the publisher for books and reports in references.

Article in journals: List all authors when six or less. When seven or more, list only first three and add et al.

Kaur K, Khalil S, Singh NP, Dewan P, Gupta P, Shah D. Antibiotic susceptibility, carrier state and predictors of outcome of Staphylococcus aureus infections in hospitalized children. Indian Pediatr. 2023;60:49-53. 

Goyal A, Dabas A, Shah D, et al. Sunlight exposure vs oral vitamin D supplementation for prevention of vitamin D deficiency in infancy: A randomized controlled trial. Indian Pediatr. 2022;59:852-8.

Personal author (book)

Gupta P, Joshi P, Dewan P. Essential Pediatric Nursing, 5th ed. Jaypee Brothers Medical Publishers; 2022.

Chapter in a book

Khilnani P, Singhal N. Respiratory failure. In: Choudhury P, Bagga A, Chugh K, Ramji S, Gupta P, editors. Principles of Pediatric and Neonatal Emergencies. 3rd ed. Jaypee Brothers; 2011.p.74-83.

Conference paper

Visioli S, Spinelli A, Oldani S, et al. Using learning contracts in undergraduate medical education: The 'students' point of view. Paper presented at the AMEE 2008 conference, Prague, Czechoslovakia, 2008.  Accessed on June 1, 2022. Available from: https://www.academia.edu/24102850/Using_learning_contracts_in_undergraduate_medical_education_the_students_point_of_view