Submissions

EDITORIAL

Scientific Editorials. They represent a rigorous update or an interesting point of view on a certain topic.

Opinion editorials. They gather points of view or socio-scientific positions of the scientific community on a certain topic of common interest for researchers and health professionals. Their length may reach up to four pages without including figures or tables.

They are requested by the editorial committee. If an author wishes to propose one, he/she should contact the Editorial Committee. It can only be signed by one author, who is encouraged to send a photo, which can be published with the editorial.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

These reflect comments or objections to articles published in the journal. They are published with the aim at allowing the interchange of knowledge and experiences among the authors and the readers of any publication. They may contain up to three pages, be written by one or two authors and backed up by bibliographic references.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Letters to the editor constitute a brief commentary in agreement or disagreement, mainly the latter, with aspects contained in published works and which may be related to concepts, methodologies, interpretations, results, or other aspects of those already published in Revista de Ciencias Médicas de Pinar del Río.

They can be motivated by issues related to the journal's mission for the development of public health as long as the letters allow the exchange of ideas and opinions between authors and readers of the journal, being this activity as interesting as the original article that triggers the exchange of correspondence.

They should be dynamic and offer the journal added value by allowing the scientific community to publish a brief research result, to present their own results from an original article, not yet published or an original article that promotes reanalysis of data already available and its subsequent explanation in letter format, or to develop opinions, ideas and hypotheses to be shown to the scientific community and health professionals.

Guidelines for writing letters. The title should be informative and concessions not accepted in other original articles are allowed. They can be striking, in interrogative or exclamatory form or by the use of word play. It must begin with an explicit and clear reference in relation to the fact that motivates it, whether it is the article that appeared in the magazine or another cause, and from there an expository scheme and in progressive form. The following paragraphs should be the argumentation for or against; or additional comments regarding the reason for the letter.

If original data are going to be presented, the main characteristics of the methodology should be explained in a very summarized way (more summarized than in the original article). The following paragraphs should contain the discussion of the reasoning or data provided and end with a final paragraph as conclusions. One author is recognized although, depending on the purpose, up to two are accepted. The length of the letter will be up to two pages, up to 1 500 words maximum. If necessary, up to six current bibliographical references are accepted.

ORIGINAL ARTICLES

It will include the following order: (1) front page, (2) abstract [in the original language of the article] and keywords, (3) introduction ending with the objective, (4) methods, (5) results [figures and tables are included] (6) discussion, (7) conclusions [which may be included as the final paragraph of the discussion], (8) financing, conflict of interest and authorship contribution [by CRediT methodology], (9) bibliographical references.  

• Conduct OBSERVATIONAL studies per the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) statement. Systematic review articles or articles containing meta-analyses should be developed using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement format. For health economic evaluations use the CHEERS guidelines, and for clinical trials use the CONSORT guidelines.

Introduction: brief and provide only the explanation necessary for the reader to understand the text that follows. Address the background, as well as epidemiological, incidence or prevalence data. It should not contain tables or figures. It should end with a final paragraph in which the objective of the work is clearly stated.

Methods: identify the classification of the type of study proposed. The universe and the sample with clarity and the way of selection of the subjects (observed or who participated in the experiments: patients or laboratory animals, including witnesses). Mention the methods used, in case of using manual instruments, reagents or measuring equipment (name and address of the manufacturer in parentheses and its calibration or quality control standard), so that what is being measured or weighed is valid, and the procedures with sufficient details so that other researchers can reproduce the results.

Provide references to accredited methods, including those of a statistical nature only when it is a method not widely known to readers and briefly explain methods already published but not well known; describe new or substantially modified methods, stating the reasons why they were used and evaluating their limitations. Accurately identify the medications and chemical products used, without forgetting the generic names, doses and routes of administration.

• It is unnecessary to express in the text if it was processed in Word or that the tables and graphs were made in Excel or another tabulator, nor is it necessary to write that tables and graphs were used for better understanding.

When reporting on experiments on humans, laboratory animals or others, state whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the committee (institutional or regional) that oversees human experimentation or with the Declaration of Helsinki of 1975, as amended in 1983.

Detailed descriptions or photographs of individual patients, either of the whole body or parts of the body (including physiognomic features) are sometimes key documentation in medical journal articles. The use of such materials can lead to revealing the identity of the patient, sometimes even indirectly, through a combination of seemingly innocuous data. Patients and their families have the right to anonymity in published clinical documentation. Details that may identify patients should be avoided unless they are essential for scientific purposes. Covering the eyes in photographs of patients may be an insufficient protection of anonymity.

If identification of patients is unavoidable, their informed consent must be obtained, so the informed consent notice should be attached to the submission at the time of uploading the manuscript to the system. Patient data will not be modified in order to protect their anonymity. It should be written in past verb, impersonal voice.

Results: this is a fundamental part in the publication of scientific articles. In some papers a large number of results are obtained, which obliges the author to select the most important ones according to his objectives. The first form of presentation is the text. Tables, graphs and illustrations should be used as an alternative to express the results following a logical sequence and no more than necessary (maximum of six in total). Avoid repetitions in the text of data from tables, charts, or illustrations available to the reader, highlight or summarize briefly and clearly only the most important observations without reading them to the reader. It should be written in past tense, impersonal voice.

Discussion: the author will discuss the results of the research in logical order to its objective, with emphasis on the new and important aspects of the study and the conclusions derived from them. Do not repeat in detail the data or other information already presented in the previous sections. Show the relationships between each result and the facts you stated. State your own opinions on the subject.

Explain in the discussion the significance of the results and their limitations, including their implications for future research. Relate the observations to those of other relevant studies using up-to-date citations. Establish the linkage of the findings to the objectives of the study, but refrain from making general statements and drawing conclusions that are not fully supported by the data.

Do not claim any kind of provenance or mention unfinished work. Propose new hypotheses when there is justification for doing so, but clearly identify the hypotheses. This section includes, together with the discussion, the conclusions that will summarize the particularity of the work, which should be inferred in the discussion. Conclusions are presented as part of the discussion, generally at the end, which are only presented as a section in the abstract at the beginning of the article.

Acknowledgements: they are not essential. Collaborations that need to be acknowledged but do not justify authorship status, such as general support from the head of the department, acknowledgement for technical help received or for material support, specifying the nature of the support, and financial relationships that may give rise to a conflict of interest, may be specified among other reasons.

Persons who collaborated intellectually in the article but whose participation does not justify authorship can be cited by name, adding their function or type of collaboration; for example, "scientific advice", "critical review of the proposal for the study", "data collection" or "participation in the clinical trial". These persons should give their permission to be named or at least be aware of it and give their agreement. It is the authors' responsibility to obtain written authorization from the persons mentioned by name in the acknowledgements, since readers may infer that they support the data and conclusions, and will assume shared responsibility in the event of any conflict.

The maximum length of the text will be 4,500 words, between 15 and 20 bibliographic references will be cited, with more than 75 % of the total number of references being up to date (last five years of the study), where 50 % will be from the last three years. The bibliography will be sent as normal text, without using codes from bibliographic management programs, in correspondence with their respective URLs.

BRIEF COMMUNICATION

Short communications are scientific articles that are not very long, with the objective of making known a hypothesis, or partial results of a research, that needs to be made known to the scientific community, they include Abstract, Introduction, Objective, Methods explaining the essential elements for the development of the work, Results if any, a Discussion that should not be very long expressing its essential elements, Conclusions and Bibliographical references.

UP TO DATE ARTICLE OF SOCIAL, HUMANITIES AND PEDAGOGICAL SCIENCES

Their purpose is to divulge innovative topics, of great use and importance for the scientific community in the professional sphere in medical training. It should include Abstract, Introduction (basing the reason for the topic), Development, Conclusions and Bibliographic References (up to 25 citations).

CASE REPORTS

These are articles that describe one or several clinical cases of exceptional or novel observation, aspect of a previously known disease or syndrome, which represent a contribution of special interest for the knowledge of the subject or the process described in the world today. Before writing a case report or presentation, it should be checked in the international literature to see if it has value as a publication. Brevity will be the fundamental characteristic of this type of article. Its structure includes Abstract, Introduction, Presentation of the case, Discussion, Bibliographical references.

The maximum length of the text will be up to five pages or 2500 words, 13 to 15 bibliographic references will be cited with their corresponding URLs and topicality (see original article).

REVIEW ARTICLES

This type of article offers a critical evaluation of published works, in which the current state of a particular topic is compiled, analyzed and synthesized. The purpose of the review, sources and search methods of references should be indicated.

The article should include: Title, Abstract, Introduction, Development, Conclusions of the review. Optionally, the paper may include tables and figures. The review articles should be elaborated with the most updated bibliography possible of the subject that is approached in its access in networks. The introduction should be broad, suppressing material and methods (unless original data are presented).

The Methods section will include the methods used, the databases and search strategies; as well as the criteria used for the selection of the articles cited. It does not require results, but it should expand the discussion as a secondary article.

Its fundamental characteristic is to use a greater number of bibliographical references of the most current relevance possible, it should contain 23 to 30 citations, and it is usually long, between 10 and 50 pages or up to five thousand words without the bibliographical references.

The review article, although it sometimes contains new data, has the purpose of examining the previously published bibliography and placing it in a certain perspective, offering a critical evaluation of the object of study and should arrive at important conclusions for the reader, based on the analyzed works.