Preparing your materials

About

BJPsych International is an open access, peer-reviewed journal owned by the Royal College of Psychiatrists. It is published quarterly by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the College. Please see the journal’s Aims & Scope for further information about its focus and readership.

BJPsych International is not responsible for statements made by contributors and material in the BJPsych International does not necessarily reflect the views of the Editor-in-Chief or the College.

We accept articles dealing with issues relevant to the promotion of community mental health, the management of mental health services, and worldwide training in psychiatry. These include original research articles, and systematic reviews and meta-analyses of international relevance. We particularly welcome high-quality contributions relevant to low-and middle-income countries. We encourage the submission of video abstracts.

Policy on prior publication

When authors submit manuscripts to this journal, these manuscripts should not be under consideration, accepted for publication or in press within a different journal, book or similar entity, unless explicit permission or agreement has been sought from all entities involved. However, deposition of a preprint on the author’s personal website, in an institutional repository, or in a preprint archive shall not be viewed as prior or duplicate publication. Authors should follow the Cambridge University Press Preprint Policy regarding preprint archives and maintaining the version of record.

ORCID

We require all corresponding authors to identify themselves using ORCID when submitting a manuscript to this journal. ORCID provides a unique identifier for researchers and, through integration with key research workflows such as manuscript submission and grant applications, provides the following benefits:

Discoverability: ORCID increases the discoverability of your publications, by enabling smarter publisher systems and by helping readers to reliably find work that you have authored.
Convenience: As more organisations use ORCID, providing your iD or using it to register for services will automatically link activities to your ORCID record, and will enable you to share this information with other systems and platforms you use, saving you re-keying information multiple times.
Keeping track: Your ORCID record is a neat place to store and (if you choose) share validated information about your research activities and affiliations.

See our ORCID FAQs for more information.

If you don’t already have an iD, you will need to create one if you decide to submit a manuscript to this journal. You can register for one directly from your user account on ScholarOne, or alternatively via https://ORCID.org/register.

If you already have an iD, please use this when submitting your manuscript, either by linking it to your ScholarOne account, or by supplying it during submission using the "Associate your existing ORCID iD" button.

ORCIDs can also be used if authors wish to communicate to readers up-to-date information about how they wish to be addressed or referred to (for example, they wish to include pronouns, additional titles, honorifics, name variations, etc.) alongside their published articles. We encourage authors to make use of the ORCID profile’s “Published Name” field for this purpose. This is entirely optional for authors who wish to communicate such information in connection with their article. Please note that this method is not currently recommended for author name changes: see Cambridge’s author name change policy if you want to change your name on an already published article. See our ORCID FAQs for more information.

Preparing your Submission

Authors are encouraged to submit video abstracts (see During Online Submission). Authors will be asked to confirm the following elements are included during submission. Any omissions may cause delays.

Word Document:

1. Title – Titles are often recommended at the stage of commissioning but may be modified at the authors’ discretion. Please ensure that the title included in the system matches the title within the manuscript file upon submission.

2. Author Names – The full names of the authors should appear on the title page in the form that is wished for publication. When submitting a manuscript authored by a group, please specify the name of the group and identify the group members on the title page who can take credit and responsibility for the work as authors. Other group members (non-author contributors) should be listed under Acknowledgements or in Supplementary Material.

3. Author Details – At the end of the manuscript list the degrees, job titles, affiliations (including department and institution) and country at the time the work was carried out. Due to space constraints in BJPsych International, authors are asked to limit their degrees and affiliations to one only.

4. Corresponding author – Identify one corresponding author with an email address appropriate for publication.

5. Abstract – Abstracts are used for review purposes and form the basis of the “Summary" published at the start of the paper in the journal. Abstracts should not be repeated in the text. See relevant Article Type for individual specification.

6. Main Text – See relevant Article Type for individual specification.

7. Clinical Trials Registration – In accordance with ICMJE guidelines, the BJPsych requires all clinical trials to be registered in a public trials registry at the beginning of the research process (prior to patient enrolment). Trial registration numbers should be included in the abstract, with full details of the trial in the Methods section.

8. Consent Statement – Submissions involving human participants must include the following statement:

Written [or verbal] informed consent was obtained from all subjects/patients. Where verbal consent was obtained this must be followed by a statement such as: Verbal consent was witnessed and formally recorded. This confirms that any participant has consented to the inclusion of material pertaining to themselves, that they acknowledge that they cannot be identified via the manuscript; and that the participant has been fully anonymised by the author. If a real individual is described and identifiable, authors should complete a Consent Form and email it to the editorial team at BJPInternational@rcpsych.ac.uk. Where someone is deceased, please ensure you have written consent from the family or estate.

9. References – References should be numbered in the order that they appear in the text and listed at the end of the manuscript using the Vancouver style. Unpublished doctoral theses may be cited but no other citation of unpublished work, including unpublished conference presentations, is permissible. Authors are responsible for checking all references for accuracy and relevance before submission. All reported data, results and diagnostic systems should be referenced. See relevant Article Type for individual reference specification. Read our guide to Vancouver referencing here.

Required Statements:

1. Funding – Authors must include a Funding Statement in their manuscript. Within this statement please provide details of the sources of financial support for all authors, including grant numbers, for example: “Funding Statement: This work was supported by the Medical Research Council (grant number XXXXXXX)”. Grants held by different authors should be identified as belonging to individual authors by the authors’ initials, for example: “Funding Statement: This work was supported by the Wellcome Trust (AB, grant numbers XXXX, YYYY), (CD, grant number ZZZZ); the Natural Environment Research Council (EF, grant number FFFF); and the National Institutes of Health (AB, grant number GGGG), (EF, grant number HHHH).” Where no specific funding has been provided for research, you should include the following statement: “Funding Statement: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.”

2. Ethics- All authors are required to follow the ICMJE guidelines on the protection of research participants. Articles reporting original research must include an ethical approval statement which either confirms that ethical approval was obtained for the work (giving details) or explains why ethical approval was not required.

Ethical Oversight / Research with Humans or Animals. We expect any authors who submit content to BJPsych International to have obtained the necessary ethical approvals and consents for their research and its publication, and to be able to produce evidence of this if requested. For more information on clinical trial requirements and consent statement requirements, see the 'Preparing your submission' section.

3. Acknowledgements – Authors may acknowledge individuals or organisations who provided non-financial advice and/or support. Names and descriptions of the contributions of all non-author contributors should be included (as identified in the ICMJE guidelines). We are aware that authors sometimes receive assistance from technical writers, language editors, artificial intelligence (AI) tools, and/or writing agencies in drafting manuscripts for publication. Such assistance must be noted in the Acknowledgements section. Failure to acknowledge assistance from technical writers, language editors, AI tools and/or writing agencies in drafting manuscripts for publication in the Acknowledgements section may lead to disqualification of the paper. If a professional medical writer has been employed in connection to the work, the writer must submit a completed ICMJE Conflicts of Interest form and be named in the Acknowledgements section with their contact information. Examples of how to acknowledge assistance in drafting manuscripts:

“The author(s) thank [name and qualifications] of [company, city, country] for providing [medical/technical/language] writing support/editorial support [specify and/or expand as appropriate], which was funded by [sponsor, city, country]."
“The author(s) made use of [AI system/tool] to assist with the drafting of this article. [AI version details] was accessed/obtained from [source details] and used with/without modification [specify and/or expand as appropriate] on [date(s)]."

4. Author Contribution – All authors should meet all four ICMJE criteria for authorship. Please provide a very brief description of the contribution of each author. For Original Articles please include their roles in formulating the research question(s), designing the study, carrying it out, analysing the data and writing the article. The journal will follow COPE guidance to investigate if ghost, guest or gift authorship is suspected in a paper.

5. Transparency Declaration - The lead author and manuscript guarantor will be required to affirm that the manuscript is an honest, accurate, and transparent account of the study being reported; that no important aspects of the study have been omitted; and that any discrepancies from the study as planned (and, if relevant, registered) have been explained.

6. Declaration of Interest – Authors should include a Declaration of Interest statement in their manuscript, detailing all conflicts of interest. Conflicts of interest are situations that could be perceived to exert an undue influence on an author’s presentation of their work. They may include, but are not limited to, financial, professional, contractual or personal relationships or situations. Conflicts of interest do not necessarily mean that an author’s work has been compromised. Authors should declare any real or perceived conflicts of interest in order to be transparent about the context of their work. If the manuscript has multiple authors, the author submitting the manuscript must include a Declaration of Interest statement relevant to all contributing authors. Example wording for your declaration is as follows: “Declaration of Interest: Author A is employed at company B. Author C owns shares in company D, is on the Board of company E and is a member of organisation F. Author G has received grants from company H.” If no Conflicts of Interest exist, your declaration should state “Declaration of Interest: None”.

7. Data Availability - In the interests of research transparency, authors are required to maintain accurate records of data associated with their manuscript, and to supply or provide access to these data on reasonable request for purposes of reproducing results or replicating procedures. Authors are encouraged to deposit data in a recognized data repository that can mint a persistent digital identifier (e.g. DOI), provides timestamped entries and recognizes a long-term preservation plan. Please include a brief statement indicating whether the materials supporting the findings are available, and if so, where readers may access them. For example:

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in [repository name] athttp://doi.org/[doi], reference number [reference number].
The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author, [initials]. The data are not publicly available due to [restrictions e.g. their containing information that could compromise the privacy of research participants].
Data availability is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study.
The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, [author initials], upon reasonable request.
Please find more sample statements here.

8. Analytic Code Availability - In the interests of research transparency, authors are required to maintain accurate records of analytic code associated with their manuscript, and to supply or provide access to the analytic code on reasonable request for purposes of reproducing results or replicating procedures. Authors are encouraged to deposit analytic code in a recognized repository that can mint a persistent digital identifier (e.g. DOI), provides timestamped entries and recognizes a long-term preservation plan. Please include a brief statement indicating whether or not the analytic code supporting the findings are available to other researchers, and if so, where readers may access them.

9. Research Material Availability- In the interests of research transparency, authors are required to maintain accurate records of materials associated with their manuscript, and to supply or provide access to the materials on reasonable request for purposes of reproducing results or replicating procedures. Authors are encouraged to deposit materials in a recognized repository that can mint a persistent digital identifier (e.g. DOI), provides timestamped entries and recognizes a long-term preservation plan. Please include a brief statement indicating whether or not the materials supporting the findings are available to other researchers, and if so, where readers may access them.

Thesis Citing

The journal welcomes research that has been completed as part of a thesis. All submissions are required to meet the standards of the journal and will be subject to the usual peer review process.

In accordance with the journal’s Publishing Ethics Policy, it is mandatory for authors to disclose whether the research is part of a thesis by following the below points:

Authors are required to indicate in ScholarOne and disclose in their covering letter their work is part of or is a whole thesis.
Authors are required to update the title page of the thesis with a link to the new version of record.
Authors are required to cite and reference their thesis.
Authors should refer to the general rights detailed in the thesis and confirm they hold copyright/have permission to reuse this material in the new paper.
Authors are reminded that final decisions are at the discretion of the Editor in Chief.

Failure to disclose this information will result in the submission being withdrawn and the University notified.

Other Documents:

1. Authors are encouraged to use figures, boxes, illustrations, black and white photographs, and tables to illustrate points.

2. Tables - Tables should be numbered (e.g. Table 1, Table 2…) and referenced in the text of the manuscript. Authors must indicate the desired position of the table in the manuscript. Authors must obtain permission from the original publisher if they intend to use tables from other sources, and due acknowledgement should be made in a footnote to the table as follows: Permission to replicate this table has been given to the authors by XXX. Authors are responsible for paying any related fees for material originally published elsewhere. Please ensure tables are a reasonable size. Tables over two typeset pages (around 1,400 words) will be moved to supplementary material.

3. Figures - Figures should be numbered (e.g. Fig 1, Fig 2, Fig 3…) and referenced in the text of the manuscript. Authors must indicate the desired position of the figure in the manuscript. Please consult the journal artwork guide for a detailed specification on accepted file formats. Authors must obtain permission from the original publisher if they intend to use figures from other sources, and due acknowledgement should be made in the legend as follows: Permission to replicate this figure has been given to the authors by XXX. Any figures supplied in colour will be published online in colour but converted to tints of the journal’s Pantone shade for printing. The optional charge for full colour figure print publication is £200/$320 per figure (up to a maximum of £1000/$1600 per article). To request colour figures in print, please tick the appropriate box when submitting your manuscript. If you request colour figures in the printed version, you will be contacted after acceptance by CCC-Rightslink who are acting on our behalf to collect colour charges. Please follow their instructions in order to avoid any delay in the publication of your article.

4. Supplementary Material – Material related to a paper but not essential for a general understanding of the paper may be published as data supplement. Supplementary material is peer reviewed but will not be copyedited or typeset and should be supplied as authors wish it to appear online. Supplementary material should be uploaded as a separate file and referenced in the manuscript. This material includes, but is not restricted to:

Additional data presented as tables or figures
Details of a search strategy employed in a literature review
Details of the literature retrieved but not further discussed in the body of the manuscript
Technical details of specialist (but not novel) methodology, statistical analysis and supporting references
Authors who have contributed in some sense to the paper but don’t qualify for an authorship credit (e.g. group authorship) should be added to supplementary material rather than included in the footnote or acknowledgement section
Long lists of contributors who don’t qualify for an authorship credit (e.g. group authorship) should be added to supplementary material. Shorter lists can be included in the acknowledgement section.

5. Author Publication Agreement – A signed Author Publishing Agreement must be submitted online when submitting a revised version of the manuscript, or immediately after acceptance if no revision is required.

During Online Submission

The following must be provided as part of the online submission process:

Responding to reviewers – When submitting a revised manuscript, authors are expected to respond to reviewers' comments on the previous submission, point by point where prompted during online submission. Authors are also required to submit a version of the revised manuscript with track changes or highlight in yellow changes made in response to the reviewers’ comments.
ORCID - The corresponding author is required to register for an ORCID profile during manuscript submission. We recommend that all authors register for an ORCID profile and link their ORCID to their ScholarOne account. Please find more information about registration here.

Article Types

Original Article

Article that reports original research findings and analysis.

The word count should not exceed 4,000 words (excluding references, tables and figure legends) and may include up to 40 essential references beyond those describing statistical procedures, psychometric instruments and diagnostic guidelines used in the study.

Structured abstract of up to 300 words with the headings: Background; Aims; Method; Results; Conclusions (Trial Registration Number and Data Set Information where appropriate). Please find further guidance on writing an effective abstract here.

Main text should include the following sections: Introduction, Method, Results and Discussion.

Introductions should be concise, covering the background of the study.

Discussion section should always include limitations of the paper to ensure balance and use of subheadings is encouraged in this section. Authors should summarize the conclusions of the study at the end of the Discussion.

In total, up to four tables and figures may be included in the main article (e.g. three tables and one figure). Additional tables and figures may be included as online only supplementary material. All large tables (exceeding one journal page) will be published as online only supplementary material. Authors are encouraged to present key data within smaller tables within the article itself.

Review

Definition: Systematic reviews that are ‘first in field’; narrative review articles in exceptional cases only

Systematic reviews submitted to BJPsych International should be 'first in field', explicating important findings in fields where no systematic review has yet been published or where information in the literature is conflicting. They are expected to be a clear building block upon which further research in the field is undertaken.

If you are interested in submitting a narrative review, please contact the Editorial Office first at bjpinternational@rcpsych.ac.uk

We require authors to register the protocol for systematic reviews before data extraction on an accessible, searchable site such as PROSPERO and include the registration number in the manuscript file. If the review has not been registered, we are unable to consider your submission.

The word count should not exceed 6,000 words (excluding references, tables and figure legends) and may include up to 150 essential references in total. Additional references may be included with permission of the Editor in Chief. Only papers directly referred to should be directly referenced in the main manuscript file; large data sets should be included in the supplementary material.

Please include a structured abstract of up to 300 words with the headings: Background, Aims, Method (including data sources, study selections, synthesis approach), Results, Conclusions.

The main text should include the following sections: Introduction, Method, Results and Discussion and conclusion.

It is important that the Method section clearly describes the search strategy, study selection criteria and synthesis approach in sufficient detail to ensure the method can be replicated to extract the same data with the same or similar analysis. This should include information about the protocol registration, review software, data sources (bibliographic databases such as PubMed/MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL, PsycINFO and reference lists from journals or books), MeSH and free text search terms and filters, dates included in the search, screening process, language limitations, inclusion and exclusion criteria, study selection and synthesis approach. To ensure a comprehensive review of the literature, we encourage consideration of publications in non-English languages. Ideally the search should be as current as possible with the search date noted in the manuscript. Please describe how the quality of evidence was evaluated and explain whether heterogeneity between studies was investigated and explored.

The results section should report the results and summarise the quality of the evidence. Where necessary, a statement should be made as to how quality has been used to inform interpretation of results and/or analysis.

The Discussion section should summarise key findings and describe the impact of the results on clinical practice. Authors should discuss both the strengths and the limitations of the evidence and the review.

Tables and figures identifying the primary finding(s) may be included in the print version of each paper. Additional tables and figures will be included as online only supplementary material. All large tables (exceeding one journal page) will be published as online only supplementary material. Authors are encouraged to present key data within smaller tables for print publication.

Supplementary tables, figures and data should include (in this order):

PRISMA-P (or equivalent) table
Search strings used for various platforms such as MEDLINE, Scopus etc.
PICOS table (if relevant)
List of all included papers
Additional sensitivity analyses or additional analyses (if relevant)
Publication bias: a funnel plot and additional analyses undertaken where necessary
Quality Assessment

Authors should include a GRADE assessment of the findings or equivalent approach to place the importance of the findings in context.

Previously published Reviews for groups such as the Cochrane Collaboration and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence should be submitted with the latest version of the parent review and its status, so an informed decision can be made about the added value of the submitted paper.