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Advice for authors
All papers should be submitted electronically via Editorial Manager http://jhi.edmgr.com/
Each author is required to declare his or her individual contribution to the article: all authors must have materially participated in the research and/or article preparation, so roles for all authors should be described. The statement that all authors have approved the final article should be true and included in the disclosure.
All authors should have made substantial contributions to all of the following: (1) the conception and design of the study, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data, (2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content, (3) final approval of the version to be submitted.
The JHI requires a hand signed signature from every individual author listed confirming that they have read and agree to the final draft before submission. Signatures created on a computer cannot be accepted.
Conflict of interest must be clearly stated- please refer to instructions for authors on Editorial Manager for details
All sources of funding should be declared as an acknowledgement at the end of the text.
More details can be found in the Instructions to Authors section on Editorial Manager.
Full length, original research articles
This is the usual format for publishing original research.
The word limit is 4000 words of text, which includes the structured summary of up to 250 words, text, acknowledgements and references. Each figure and/or table counts as 200 words towards the total. JHI accepts electronic supplementary material to support and enhance your scientific research.
Short reports
This format is ideal for reporting smaller original research studies.
The format is the same as for a full length, original research article, except that the summary of up to 100 words should be unstructured.
The word limit is 2000 words, with no more than two figures or tables and a maximum of ten references.
Reviews
We welcome general reviews that summarize the current understanding and research on a topic, and systematic reviews that provide a thorough critical assessment of current evidence.
Before you start work on a review we do advice that you check with our office that the topic of your review is suitable and that there are no similar reviews in progress.
For general reviews, an unstructured summary of up to 250 words is required; for systematic reviews, please provide a structured summary of up to 250 words.
The word limit is 5000 words of text, and up to 150 references. Authors of suitable review articles may be required to provide a few questions and answers for Continuing Professional Development (CPD).
Commentaries
Commentaries are by invitation only. These are intended to provide background and context for published articles, and are usually written by an editor or referee. The word limit is 700 words, and a maximum of 10 references. No summary, tables or figures are allowed.
Editorial
Editorials are by invitations only. These provide a broad overview of topics that are relevant to infection prevention and control, but are less detailed than a review article. Word and reference limits will be agreed with the Editor at the time of invitation. Readers are welcome to submit suggestions for editorial subject matter to our office.
Opinions
Opinions are by invitation only. These provide the authors viewpoint on widespread concepts and methods, Authors can comments on the strengths and weaknesses of an approach in a constructive and evidence based form. The word limit is 700 words and a maximum of 10 references. No summary, tables or figures are allowed.
National or society guidelines
We encourage authors to contact the office as soon as possible during guideline development to discuss a publishing strategy for their Guidelines.
Letter to the Editor
Letters should contain up to 800 words and no more than eight references. Letters should not contain structural headings or a summary.
We welcome letters relating to, or responding to, recently published items in the journal. Where appropriate, these will be shown to the authors of the original article, who will be invited to respond. We also welcome correspondence relating to general observations about infection prevention and control practice. We will only publish reports of research as a letter where the findings are important or radical enough to merit the earliest possible publication.
Outbreak reports
We welcome these, but there should be something new about them, e.g. caused by a novel organism, associated with a new source or identified or controlled using novel methods.
Practice Points
These are short peer-reviewed articles that are intended for communication of research, audit or clinical experience (whether positive or negative) of Gram-negative bloodstream infections that would be of general interest but are not substantial enough for publication as either a short report or full paper. Practice Points are up to 800 words in length with no more than 8 references; one table or figure is allowed. There should be no structured headings within the article. A separate summary, and keywords, are not required.
The language of the JHI is British English. Always write in plain English - many of our readers will not be native English speakers. Please be careful to use terminologies that will be understandable internationally, for example when describing the organisation of your hospital or healthcare system. Please be careful not to use jargon which will not be internationally understood.
All newly submitted papers are first considered by the Editorial team.
Around half of all submissions are rejected at this stage. The main reasons for papers being rejected at this stage are that the subject material does not fall within the scope of the JHI, or the findings are not sufficiently novel to merit publication in an international journal. We aim to return a decision to the authors on these papers within 7 days, and will always provide a reason why we have rejected the paper.
The remaining papers are sent out for single blind peer review.
The Editorial team reserve the right to edit articles for clarity and length, although the prime responsibility for both lies with the authors.
Authors submitting a manuscript do so on the understanding that, if it is accepted for publication, exclusive copyright of the paper shall be assigned to The Healthcare Infection Society.
All papers should be submitted electronically via Editorial Manager.
Full journal requirements can be found at https://www.journalofhospitalinfection.com/content/authorinfo
If you have any queries, please email the team at journals@his.org.uk