Enacted in March 1995 and most recently revised in March 2024 and applied from Vol 30, No 1 (March 2024)
Women’s Health Nursing is focused on women’s healthy life processes or on conditions relevant to women due to greater risk or prevalence among women. It features original articles and review papers. Manuscripts for submission should be prepared according to the following instructions. The Journal follows the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals: Writing and Editing for Biomedical Publication (http://www.icmje.org) if not otherwise described below.
Nurses or researchers throughout the world can submit a manuscript if the scope is appropriate for Women’s Health Nursing. Manuscripts should be submitted in English or in Korean. Medical or nursing terminology should be written based on the most recent edition of Dorland’s Illustrated Medical Dictionary, the most recent edition of English-Korean Korean-English Medical Terminology (https://term.kma.org/search/list.asp) published by the Korean Medical Association or the most recent edition of Standard Nursing Terminology published by the Korean Society of Nursing Science. Authors are required to state their affiliation (at the timeooint when the research was conducted) and related status (job titles) upon submission, to support the reliability of the research.
For the policies on research and publication ethics that are not stated in these instructions, the Good Publication Practice Guidelines for Medical Journals (https://www.kamje.or.kr/board/view?b_name=bo_publication&bo_id=13&per_page=) or the Guidelines on Good Publication Practice (https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Guidelines) can be applied.
Conflict-of-interests statement: Authors are required to disclose commercial or similar relationships to products or companies mentioned in or related to the subject matter of the article being submitted. Sources of funding for the article should be acknowledged in a footnote on the title page. Affiliations of authors should include corporate appointments relating to or in connection with products or companies mentioned in the article, or otherwise bearing on the subject matter thereof. Other pertinent financial relationships, such as consultancies, stock ownership or other equity interests, or patent-licensing arrangements should be disclosed to the Editor-in-Chief in the cover letter at the time of submission. Such relationships may be disclosed in the Journal at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief in footnotes appearing on the title page. Questions about this policy should be directed to the Editor-in-Chief. If there is no conflict of interest, this should also be explicitly stated as “The author(s) declared no conflicts of interest.”
Statement of human and animal rights: Clinical research should be done in accordance with the Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects, outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki (https://www.wma.net/policies-post/wma-declaration-of-helsinki-ethical-principles-for-medical-research-involving-human-subjects/). Clinical studies that do not meet the Declaration of Helsinki will not be considered for publication. Research participants’ rights to privacy must be protected, and personal identifiable information should not be disclosed unless absolutely necessary. Human subjects should not be identifiable, i.e., patients’ names, initials, hospital numbers, dates of birth, photographs, or other protected healthcare information should not be disclosed. If such personal information is needed as scientific data for publication, this should be explained to participants (or legal guardians) and written consent must be obtained. The possibility of online information sharing (not only printed publications) must also be explained. For animal subjects, research should be performed based on the National or Institutional Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, and the ethical treatment of all experimental animals should be maintained. For studies using literature review and meta-analysis, Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval is not required. For secondary data analysis studies, the editorial committee will decide whether IRB approval is needed.
Statement of informed consent: Copies of written informed consents and IRB approval for clinical research should be kept. If necessary, the editor or reviewers may request copies of these documents to resolve questions about IRB approval and study conduct.
Authorship: All authors, including the co-authors, should be responsible for a significant part of the manuscript. All authors and co-authors should have taken part in writing the manuscript, reviewing it, and revising its intellectual and technical content. Any author whose name appears on a paper assumes responsibility and accountability for the results. Artificial intelligence (AI) tools cannot be listed as an author of a paper.
Originality and duplicate publication: All submitted manuscripts should be original and should not be considered by other scientific journals for publication at the same time. Manuscripts published as preprints (not peer reviewed) may be submitted if full disclosure information is provided. Manuscripts are accepted for publication with the understanding that their contents, or their essential substance, have not been published elsewhere, except in abstract form or by the express consent of the Editors. Any part of the accepted manuscript should not be duplicated in any other scientific journal without the permission of the Editorial Board. The duplication will be checked through SimilarityCheck powered by iThenticate (https://www.crossref.org/services/similarity-check/) before review. If duplicate publication related to the papers of this journal is detected, the authors will be announced in the journal and their institutes will be informed, and there also will be penalties for the authors. Materials taken from other sources must be accompanied by written permissions for reproduction, obtained from the original publisher. Editors should follow the procedure set out in the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) flowcharts (https://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts-new/translations) that are designed to help editors follow COPE’s Code of Conduct and implement its advice when faced with cases of suspected misconduct.
Secondary publication: It is possible to republish manuscripts if the manuscripts satisfy the condition of secondary publication of the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals (http://www.icmje.org).
Publication of master’s thesis or doctoral dissertation: When thesis or dissertation work is submitted for publication, the first author should be the thesis awarder and should declare that content is from thesis/dissertation.
This journal follows the data sharing policy described in “Data Sharing Statements for Clinical Trials: A Requirement of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE)” (https://doi.org/10.3346/jkms.2017.32.7.1051). As of July 1, 2018 manuscripts submitted to ICMJE journals that report the results of interventional clinical trials must contain a data sharing statement as described below. Clinical trials that begin enrolling participants on or after January 1, 2019 must include a data sharing plan in the trial’s registration. The ICMJE’s policy regarding trial registration is explained at http://www.icmje.org/about-icmje/faqs/clinical-trials-registration/.
Authors of interventional clinical trials are expected to submit the registration number (e.g., CRiS registration number, https://cris.nih.go.kr/) at submission. If the data sharing plan changes after registration this should be reflected in the statement submitted and published with the manuscript, and updated in the registry record. All of the authors of research articles that deal with interventional clinical trials must submit data sharing plan of example 1 to 4 in Table 1. Based on the degree of sharing plan, authors should deposit their data after de-identification and report the digital object identifier (DOI) of the data and the registered site.
Table 1. Examples of data sharing statements that fulfill the requirements of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors.
Element | Example 1 | Example 2 | Example 3 | Example 4 |
---|---|---|---|---|
Will individual participant data be available (including data dictionaries)? | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
What data in particular will be shared? | All individual participant data collected during the trial, after deidentification. | Individual participant data that underlie the results reported in this article, after deidentification (text, tables, figures, and appendices). | Individual participant data that underlie the results reported in this article, after deidentification (text, tables, figures, and appendices). | Not available |
What other documents will be available? | Study protocol, statistical analysis plan, informed consent form, clinical study report, analytic code | Study protocol, statistical analysis plan, analytic code | Study protocol | Not available |
When will data be available (start and end dates)? | Immediately following publication. No end date. | Beginning at 3 months and ending at 5 years following the article publication. | Beginning at 9 months and ending at 36 months following the article publication. | Not applicable |
With whom? | Anyone who wishes to access the data. | Researchers who provide a methodologically sound proposal. | Investigators whose proposed use of the data has been approved by an independent review committee (“learned intermediary”) identified for this purpose. | Not applicable |
For what types of analyses? | Any purpose | To achieve aims in the approved proposal. | For individual participant data meta-analysis. |
Not applicable |
By what mechanism will data be made available? | Data are available indefinitely at (link to be included). | Proposals should be directed to xxx@yyy. To gain access, data requestors will need to sign a data access agreement. | Proposals may be submitted up to 36 months following article publication. After 36 months the data will be available in our University's data warehouse but without investigator support other than deposited metadata. | Not applicable |
Data are available for 5 years at a third-party website (link to be included). | Information regarding submitting proposals and accessing data may be found at (link to be provided). |
All contributions (including solicited articles) are critically reviewed by the editorial board members, and/or reviewers. The editorial board screens whether the manuscript fits the aims and scope of the Journal and is in accord to journal style and format. Reviewers are selected by the associated editors and EIC and each primary unsolicited research manuscript is reviewed by two reviewers who are external to the editorial board for double blinded peer review. If there is discrepancy the editor will make a decision. Commissioned manuscripts (editorial, Issues and Perspectives, other invited papers) are reviewed by two members of the editorial board. The editor examines reviewers’ comments and makes the final decision.
If the manuscript does not fit the aims and scope of the Journal or does not adhere to the Instructions to Authors, it may be returned to the author immediately after receipt and without a review. Before reviewing, all submitted manuscripts are inspected by SimilarityCheck powered by iThenticate (https://www.crossref.org/services/similarity-check/), a plagiarism-screening tool. Reviewers’ comments are usually returned to authors. The decision of the editor is final. Authors will receive notification of the publication decision, along with copies of the reviews and instruction for revision, if appropriate, within two months after receipt of the submission.
The author will also be asked to confirm that the material has not been published or submitted for publication elsewhere. All material published in the Journal will be copyrighted by Korean Society of Women Health Nursing. This is an Open Access journal distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Authors are requested to submit their papers electronically through the online manuscript management system (http://submit.e-whn.org). Once a manuscript has been submitted, the order and number of authors should not change. Any inquiries on the submitted manuscript should be made to the editorial office.
Please read all instructions before submitting.
Be prepared to enter:
Copyright Transfer Agreement form and form of Conflicts of interest should be submitted online at submission. Manuscripts cannot be published without this form.
Article processing charge (APC) of 700 USD (or 700,000 Korean Won) per article is requested to the corresponding author. Further information can be found at https://e-whn.org/authors/processing_charge.php.
The full text is freely available from the website (https://e-whn.org) according to the Creative Commons License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Print copies can be dispatched to members of the Korean Society of Women Health Nursing and libraries world- wide upon the policy of the Society. Those who wish to receive copies and obtain further information should contact the office of the Society (http://www.women-health-nursing.or.kr).
Any inquiries regarding suitability of aims and scope of the Journal, submission, review, publication, or journal-related issues are welcomed. Please contact the Editorial Office (whn@e-whn.org).
For manuscript submission, please visit:
http://submit.e-whn.org
All manuscripts must be prepared in accordance with the “Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals” available at http://www.icmje.org. Manuscripts are accepted for publication with the understanding that their contents, or their essential substance, have not been published elsewhere, except in abstract form or by the express consent of the Editors. Materials taken from other sources must be accompanied by written permissions for reproduction, obtained from the original publisher. Statistical methods should be identified. Priority claims are discouraged. All materials must be written in clear, appropriate English using Microsoft Word (doc or docx). Each page must be numbered at the lower central portion. Number pages consecutively. Authors who use AI tools in the writing of a manuscript, production of images or graphical elements of the paper, or in the collection and analysis of data, must be transparent in disclosing (https://publicationethics.org/cope-position-statements/ai-author).
On the title page include title (only capitalize first letter of the first word); subtitle (if any); running title, first name, middle initial, and last names of each author, ORCiD number (required for all authors), name of department(s) and institution(s) to which the work should be attributed. The address, phone number, and email of the person responsible for correspondence concerning the manuscripts should be listed separately and clearly labeled as such. List keywords and present authors’ contributions. The journal does not limit first author status to only one person, in cases where equal contribution is evident. Describe contributions, such as the following:
Also, describe conflicts of interest, funding, data availability, and acknowledgements (acknowledge only those people and their institutions that have made significant contributions to the study). If applicable, state disclaimers, such as whether manuscript was adapted from thesis/dissertation.
The title page must be submitted separately from the manuscript. A template is available online(https://e-whn.org/authors/authors.php).
Organize the main manuscript in the following order; title, abstract and keywords, summary statement, text, references, tables, figures, and pictures.
An abstract of no more than 250 words should be typed double-spaced on a separate page. It should cover the main factual points, according to the following subheadings: Purpose, Methods, Results, and Conclusion. The abstract should be accompanied by a list of up to five keywords for indexing purposes. Be very specific in your word choice. Use MeSH keywords (https://meshb.nlm.nih.gov/) and present keywords in alphabetical order.
Following the abstract, describe a summary statement on a separate page according to the following subheadings, with 30-40 words under each subtitle.
• What is already known about this topic?
• What this paper adds
• Implications for practice, education and/or policy
Maximum word count should be within 5,000 words, although less is preferred, excluding tables, figures, and references. The manuscript should be written on A4 sized paper, in Times New Roman 12-point font, double-spaced and have margins of at least one inch (2.54 cm). In general, the text should be organized under the following headings: Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion.
Introduction: Clearly state the need of this study and main question or hypothesis of this study. Summarize the literature review or background in the area of the study.
Methods: Present an “Ethics statement” immediately after the heading “Methods” in a boxed format.
This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of XXXX University (201903-0002-01). Informed consent was obtained from the participants. |
Obtaining informed consent was exempted by the Institutional Review Board of YYYY University (201903-0002-01) because there was no sensitive infor-mation and the survey was anonymously treated. |
Describe the study design, setting and samples, and measurements, procedure, analysis used. Authors are encouraged to describe the study according to the reporting guidelines relevant to their specific research design and are required to submit the appropriate checklist. Authors can refer to those outlined by the EQUATOR Network (http://www.equator-network.org/home/) and the United States National Institutes of Health/ National Library of Medicine (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/services/research_report_guide.html).
Ensure correct use of the terms sex (when reporting biological factors) and gender (identity, psychosocial or cultural factors), and, unless inappropriate, report the sex or gender of study participants, the sex of animals or cells, and describe the methods used to determine sex or gender. If the study was done involving an exclusive population, for example in only one sex, authors should justify why, except in obvious cases (e.g., ovarian cancer). Authors should define how they determined race or ethnicity and justify their relevance.
Results: Describe the main results in a concise paragraph. This section should be the most descriptive. Note levels of statistical significance and confidence intervals where ap-propriate.
Discussion: Make discussions based only on the reported results. Describe conclusions and recommendations for further study needed. Do not summarize the study results.
Abbreviations: Use standard abbreviations and units rec-ommended in the publication manual of the to the NLM Style Guide for Authors, Editors, and Publishers (2007), 2nd ed., National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, MD, USA (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK7256/). Non-standard abbreviations should be defined the first time they appear in the text. At first usage, spell out terms and give abbreviations in parentheses. Thereafter, use only abbreviations. It is not necessary to spell out standard units of measure, even at first usage.
An invited review will be published on an interesting or a new topic. Also submitted reviews are welcomed on any field according to the aims and scope, including systematic review and meta-analysis, scoping reviews, and integrative reviews. The main text is composed of 3 sections: introduction, text, and conclusion. There is no limit to the total number of references for a review article. The word count for the main text should be within 8,000 words.
It is the commissioned article for specific purpose only with request base. The topics were discussed between editors and authors before submission. The main text is composed of 3 sections: introduction, text, and conclusion. The total number of references for a review article is recommended to be equal to or less than 30. The word count for the main text should be within 8,000. An abstract is optional and is limited to 250 words.
Issues and Perspectives is usually an invited short article, which deals with the present hot issues in women’s health nursing, although not limited to this field. Authors of general interest to nursing and health care are also invited. Its format consists of introduction, main content, conclusion, and references. Length of the main text is limited to 2,000 words and keywords are limited to 5, preferably in MeSH terms. Number of references is limited to 20 and figures and tables are limited to 10 in total.
It is a commissioned publication type for the presentation of experiences in nursing or health field. Authors are invited by the editor-in-chief. Topics are discussed upon request. There is no specific format.
An editorial is usually invited by the Editorial Board. It provides the brief review and comments on pressing developments and events in the field of women’s health nursing. It also may deal with a change in the journal’s style and format and communication with an outside organization or professional. Other various topics shall be dealt by the Editorial Board as deemed appropriate. Divisions in the body of an editorial are not required. The total number of references is recommended to be equal to or less than 10. The word count of the main text should be less than 2,500 words.
Any opinion or inquiry on a paper published can be addressed to the editor. Title, author, affiliation, main text and the references are the required sections. The total number of references is recommended to be less than 10. The word count of main text should be equal to or less than 1,000 words.
As the reply to “Letter to the editor” its format is same to the “Letter to the editorial” and will be published simultaneously.
In the text, references should be cited with Arabic numerals in brackets (e.g. [1]), numbered in the order cited.
In the references section, the references should be numbered in order of appearance in the text and listed in English citation form.
Journal titles should be described in NLM style.
References within the past 5 years are encouraged, and un-published PhD or master’s thesis are not recommended as reference.
Other types of references not described below should follow the NLM Style Guide for Authors, Editors, and Publishers (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK7256/). There are no limits to the number of references. However, limit supporting citations in text to 1-2 per statement. Note the DOI in URL form, if available.
Table 2. Recommended maximums for articles submitted to Women's Health Nursing
Publication type | Abstract (word count) |
Text (word count)a) | References | Tables & figures | Invited or unsolicited |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Original articles | 250 | 5,000 | No limit | 6 | Unsolicited |
Review articles | 250 | 8,000 | No limit | 6 | Invited or unsolicited |
Invited papers | Optional (250) | 8,000 | 30 | 10 | Invited |
Issues and Perspectives | None | 2,000 | 20 | 10 | Invited |
Special essays | None | 3000 | 20 | 10 | Invited |
Editorials | None | 2,500 | 10 | 5 | Invited |
Letter to the editor | None | 1,000 | 10 | 3 | Unsolicited |
In reply | None | 1,000 | 10 | 3 | Invited |
a)Maximum number of words excludes the abstract, references, tables, and figure legends
Above limitations are negotiable. If more word count or number of figures and tables are required, authors can contact the editor-in-chief.
Each table, figure, and picture should be placed on a separate sheet, at the end of the manuscript. Tables should be submitted in Word format. Number tables consecutively and supply a brief title at the top for each. Footnotes to tables should be indicated by superscript symbols (†, ‡, §, ǁ, ¶, #, ††, ‡‡…) unless abbreviations are explained in which case superscripts are not required. All abbreviations used should be described in table footnote by writing the abbreviation followed by colon sign and definition, presented in alphabetical order.
Tables and figures are printed only when they express more than can be done by words in the same amount of space.
Do NOT indicate placement of tables of figures in the text. The editor will automatically place your tables and figures.
The policy of Women’s Health Nursing is primarily aimed at protecting the authors, reviewers, editors, and the publisher of the journal. If not described below, the process of handling complaints and appeals follows the COPE guidelines available from: https://publicationethics.org/appeals
Who complains or makes an appeal?
Submitters, authors, reviewers, and readers may register complaints and appeals in a variety of cases as follows: Falsification, fabrication, plagiarism, duplicate publication, authorship dispute, conflicts of interest, ethical treatment of animals, informed consent, bias or unfair/inappropriate competitive acts, copyright, stolen data, defamation, and legal problem. If any individuals or institutions want to inform the cases, they can send a letter via the contact page on our website (https://e-whn.org/about/contact.php). For the complaints or appeals, concrete data with answers to all factual questions (who, when, where, what, how, why) should be provided.
Who is responsible for resolving and handling complaints and appeals?
The Editor, Editorial Board, or Editorial Office is responsible for them. A legal consultant or ethics editor may be able to help with decision making.
What may be the consequence of the remedy?
It depends on the type or degree of misconduct. The conse-quence of resolution will follow the guidelines of COPE.
Journal propagation has been done through the journal website and distribution of an introduction pamphlet. Invitations to submit a manuscript are usually focused on the presenters at conferences, seminars, or workshops if the topic is related to the journal's aims and scope.