Conference Proceedings Submissions

Author Guidelines

Peer review policy

RevSALUS operates under a double-blind (reviewer doesn't know the identity of the author, and vice-versa).

Editorial Process

RevSALUS is committed to ensuring integrity and transparency along the editorial process, which can be consulted here.

Editorial Process description

Initial Checks

All submitted manuscripts received by the Editorial Office will be checked to determine whether they are properly prepared and whether they follow the ethical policies of the journal. Manuscripts that do not fit the journal's ethics policy or do not meet the standards of the journal will be returned to the authors for revision and resubmission. 

After these checks, the manuscript goes to Editor-in-chef/Co-editor to determine whether the manuscript fits the scope of the journal and whether it is scientifically sound. No judgment on the potential impact of the work will be made at this stage. Reject decisions at this stage will be verified by the Editor-in-Chief.

Peer-Review

Once a manuscript passes the initial checks, it will be assigned to at least two independent experts for peer-review. A double-blind review is applied, where authors' identities are unknown to reviewers. Peer review comments are confidential.

Reviewers should not have published with any of the co-authors during the past three years and should not currently work with co-authors.

Editorial Decision and Revision

All the articles published in RevSALUS go through the peer-review process and receive at least two reviews. The Editor-in-chef/Co-editors will communicate the decision, which will be one of the following:

• Accepted: The paper is accepted, without revision.
• Minor Revisions: The paper is in principle accepted after revision based on the reviewer’s comments. Authors are given 7 days for minor revisions.
• Major Revisions: The acceptance of the manuscript would depend on the revisions. A maximum of two rounds of major revision per manuscript is normally provided. Authors will be asked to resubmit the revised paper within a 14 days, and the revised version will be returned to the reviewer for further comments. 
• Reject: The article has serious flaws, and/or makes no original significant contribution. If additional experiments are needed to support the conclusions, the manuscript will be rejected, and the authors will be encouraged to re-submit the paper once further experiments have been conducted.

All reviewer comments should be responded to in a point-by-point fashion. Where the authors disagree with a reviewer, they must provide a clear response (Rebuttal letter).

Once the paper is accepted, the authors will be contacted to carry out the translation which will then be subjected to a linguistic review. The article returns to the Editorial Office to continue the editing processes. After that, it goes back to the authors for a final review. Authors are given 5 days for final revisions. After final adjustments on editing processes, the article will be published in online-rolling-pass.

Authorship

RevSALUS follows the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journals Editors (ICMJE) on the preparation, writing, editing and publication of scholarly works in medical journals, so the co-authorship of articles must be based simultaneously on the following criteria:

1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work, or acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work;
2. Writing of the work or critical review of the work;
3. Final approval of the version for publication;
4. Taking responsibility for all aspects of the work, ensuring that issues related to its validity or completeness are properly investigated and resolved.

Acknowledgments 

Anybody who contributes without meeting the 4 criteria should be listed in an  acknowledgments section . This usually  happens with purely technical contributions, business affiliation or for some specific contribution.

Conflicts of interest and Funding

Conflicts of interest and Funding sources should be disclosed.

Public trust in the scientific process and the credibility of published articles depends on the transparency of the relationships and activities of authors directly or indirectly related to the work during the planning, implementation, drafting, peer review, editing, and publication of scientific work. 

If there is any conflict of interest, the authors should make it clear in the article. The recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) must be followed.

If no conflict exists, please state that ‘The Author(s) declare(s) that there is no conflict of interest’.

RevSALUS requires all authors to acknowledge and declare the existence or absence of funding.

Ethical responsibilities

The authors of the articles accept the responsibility defined by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (see www.icmje.org).

Papers submitted for publication in RevSALUS must comply with international recommendations on clinical research (World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki, recently revised) and with laboratory animals (American Physiological Society). Randomized studies should follow the CONSORT guidelines.

Plagiarism

RevSALUS protects the rights of authors and investigates allegations of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. We also seek to protect the journal's reputation against malpractice. Submitted articles can be checked with duplication checking software.

As members of Crossref, we use the Similarity Check service as a first assessment, and further checks will be performed during the review.

In case of plagiarism, we inform the authors and reserve the right to take steps to publish an erratum, and request an investigation from the authors' institution of affiliation.

Complaints management

All ethical claims are considered, and it is the journal's responsibility to maintain the integrity of the scientific record as far as possible.

The relationship with authors is based on trust and submitted material is published in good faith.

To report any concerns regarding potential misconduct, please contact the journal's editorial office.

Article's Editorial Processing Fees

RevSALUS’ publications are open access.

RevSALUS does not charge any fees for sending and evaluating manuscripts. Publication fees, once the article has been accepted, vary depending on whether one of the authors belongs to an institution that is a member of RACS - Rede Académica das Ciências da Saúde da Lusofonia:

- RACS member
Publication of article, after approval: free of charge.

- non-member of RACS
Publication of article, after approval: 400€
Payment must be made once the article has been accepted for publication.
Payments requiring an invoice should send the following details to [email protected]: name, tax number and address.
Accepted payment method: bank transfer.

The decision on articles is not influenced by whether or not the authors are from a RACS member institution.

Authorization Information

The publication of data from participants should not identify them, and the authors must provide written consent from the patient authorizing their publication, reproduction and dissemination in paper and online in RevSALUS - International Scientific Journal of the Academic Network of Health Sciences in Lusophony. Likewise, the authors are responsible for obtaining the respective authorizations to reproduce in RevSALUS all the material (text, tables or figures) previously published. These authorizations must be requested from the author and the publisher that published the material.

Copyright
The copyright of published texts is safeguarded in accordance with the Journal's own rules.

Open Access and Archive Policy

RevSALUS  offers open access under the terms of the Creative Commons - Attribution 4.0 International License and archiving via the OJS/PKP Platform CLOCKSS. Authors can share their articles in academic or research repositories with due reference to RevSALUS, under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 License.

RevSALUS fulfils the DOAJ definition of open access (https://doaj.org/apply/transparency/). The full text of all content is available for free and open access without delay to anyone. No embargo period. No requirement for users to register to read content.

Issues edited between 2019 and 2021 were published according to CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 License, also including some of the articles from issue 1 of 2022. Starting with issue 2 of 2022, all articles are published according to CC BY 4.0 License.

RevSALUS is committed to facilitating openness, transparency, and reproducibility of research. We encourage research data to be shared, citable, and recognized as an intellectual product of value. All papers must contain a methodology detailed enough for someone in the field to reproduce the methods.

Advertising Policy

The advertising should respect the editorial freedom of RevSALUS - International Scientific Journal of the Academic Network of Health Sciences in Lusophony. It may admit the institutional disclosure of the associated members of RACS and of entities outside the Network, of commercial or industrial nature, preferably outside the health field.

PREPARING YOUR MANUSCRIPT FOR SUBMISSION

Original Articles

Layout:

The manuscript must be submitted according to the template provided by the journal, which corresponds to the following structure:

- structured abstract in Portuguese and keywords;

- structured abstract in English and keywords;

- body of text;

- bibliographical references;

- figure and table legends

- tables.

Spacing 1.5, margins 2.5 cm and numbered pages and lines.

Not to exceed 5,000 words, excluding tables.

Download here the article template (format for edition).

First Page

Full title in Portuguese and English (up to 150 characters).

Name and surname of the authors in the following order: first name followed by surname.

Affiliation (department/service, institution, city, country).

Full address of the corresponding author.

Structured abstract

The abstract, with a maximum of 250 words, should be divided into five parts, where applicable: i) Introduction; ii) Objectives; iii) Material and Methods; iv) Results and v) Conclusions.

It does not include bibliographical references or figures or tables.

It includes five keywords in Portuguese and English. They should be selected from the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) of the National Library of Medicine, available at: www.nlm.nihgov/mesh/meshhome.html.

Text

It should contain the following duly indicated parts: i) Introduction; ii) Material and Methods; iii) Results; iv) Discussion and v) Conclusions. You may use appropriate subdivisions to organize each section.

Acknowledgments stand at the end of the text.

Bibliographical references.

Authors can use the Endnote format to manage bibliographic references (download here) or any other similar software (example: Zotero or Mendeley).

References should be cited in the following template (Dinis-Oliveira et al., 2018). The bibliographical references do not include unpublished data, and the information may be incorporated throughout the text, in brackets.

References should follow the template provided by RevSALUS, which meets the following requirements:

Scientific journal citation: List all authors and the following formats should be used: Dinis-Oliveira RJ, Carvalho F, Duarte JA, Remião F, Marques A, Santos A, Magalhães T. Collection of biological samples in forensic toxicology. Toxicol Mech Methods 20:363-414, 2010.

Book citation: Editors, book title,  publisher, city, year. Example: Dinis-Oliveira RJ, Carvalho F, Bastos ML. Toxicologia Forense. Lidel, Edições Técnicas LDA, Lisboa, 2015.

Chapter in a book: Authors, title of the chapter, In: title of the book, editors (ed). publisher, pages, year. Example: Magalhães T, Ribeiro C, Jardim P, Peixoto C, Dinis-Oliveira RJ, Abreu C, Pinheiro MF, Guerra CC. PARTE III. Da investigação inicial ao diagnóstico de abuso. In: Abuso de crianças e jovens – da suspeita ao diagnóstico, Magalhães T (ed). Lidel, Edições Técnicas LDA, Lisboa, 147-172:2010.

E-mail address: Website. Example: Dinis-Oliveira RJ. Toxicologia Forense. Disponível em: http://apcforenses.org/?page_id=11, consultado em 25-07-2018, 2017.

Figures

They should be submitted in the highest possible quality as a *.ppt (power-point) file. In the manuscript, the following formats are also acceptable: BMP, EPS, JPG, PDF and TIF, with 300 dpis resolution, at least 1200 pixels wide and proportional height. Figures should be numbered in the order in which they are cited in the text and marked in Arabic numerals and with identification, figure/table. Tables and figures must have Arabic numerals and a caption. Each figure and table included in the paper must be referred to in the text, as follows: These are some examples of how an abnormal immune response may be the cause of the symptoms of Behcet's disease (Fig. 4).

Tables

They are identified with Arabic numerals according to the order of entry in the text. Each table will be written single-spaced and placed at the end of the word document, with the title placed at the top and at the bottom the abbreviations are mentioned in alphabetical order.

Review Articles

They address the current state of knowledge in depth, regarding important topics. These articles are subject to the invitation of the editorial team. However, it will be possible for uninvited authors (with extensive experience in the subject) to submit review article proposals that, deemed relevant and approved by the Editorial Board, may be developed and submitted to the publication standards. Maximum number of words in the abstract: 250; maximum number of words in the body text of the article (excluding the abstract and tables): 5,000; maximum number of bibliographical references: 200. They should have a section dedicated to materials and methods.

Short communications

Articles with significant original content and justification for quick dissemination, containing a maximum of 2,500 words, including all parts except references. It is allowed to include 5 tables or figures and a maximum of 15 references. This category of articles is particularly suitable for the dissemination of, for example: discovery or development of new materials and therapies, cutting-edge experiments and elucidation of mechanisms, for example pathophysiological ones.

Letters to the Editor

They should be sent under this heading and refer to articles published in RevSALUS. Only letters received within eight weeks of the publication of the article in question will be considered. They must not exceed 800 words. They may include a maximum of two figures. Tables are excluded. It should follow the following general structure: identify the article concerned (becomes reference 1); reason for the letter; provide evidence (from the literature or personal experience); provide a summary; cite references. The author(s)' response(s) should follow the same characteristics.

Clinical cases

The explanatory text must not exceed 3,000 words and must contain relevant information. It contains a maximum of 4 figures and supplementary material, such as video clips, can be sent.

Experience reports

Articles that describe a particular experience that can contribute to the discussion, exchange and proposition of ideas for the improvement of health care. For this reason, the report must be contextualized, with objectivity and theoretical contribution. They contain a maximum of 2,500 words, with a maximum of 30 references, and should be structured as follows: title, abstract (up to 200 words), introduction, case description, methodology, discussion with literature review, conclusion and bibliography.

Imaging in health sciences

The explanatory text must not exceed 250 words and contain the most relevant information, without bibliographical references. All symbols that may appear on the pictures will be adequately explained in the text. They contain a maximum number of four figures. Images in health sciences are an important input to learning and to clinical or other practice. Clinical images, images from imaging, histopathology, surgery, etc. may be accepted. Up to two images per case may be submitted. No more than three authors and five references. No abstract is required. Only original, high quality photographs that have not been previously published are accepted.

Guidelines

Scientific societies, specialty colleges, official entities and/or associations may publish clinical, laboratory or other practice recommendations in RevSALUS.